unhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven.

They believed that if a mouse found your hair clippings and built a nest with them you got a headache. If the nest was big enough, you might go mad.

Why should literature be easy? Sometimes you can do what you want to do in a simple, direct way that is absolutely right. Sometimes you can't. Reading is not a passive act. Books are not TV. Art of all kinds is an interactive challenge. The person who makes the work and the person who comes to the work both have a job to do. I am never wilfully obscure, but I do ask for some effort.

You never give away your heart; you lend it from time to time. If it were not so, how could we take it back without asking?

We are all historians in our small way.

When a woman gives birth her waters break and she pours out the child and the child runs free.

Going back after a long time will make you made, because the people you left behind do not like to think of you changed, will treat you as they always did, accuse you of being indifferent, when you are only different.