Women were brought up to believe that men were the answer. They weren't. They weren't even one of the questions.

(on grief) And you do come out of it, that’s true. After a year, after five. But you don’t come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life.

..books look as if they contain knowledge, while e-readers look as if they contain information.

Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain. If it didn't matter, it wouldn't matter.

Did you know that there is no exact rhyme in the Russian language for the word 'pravda'? Ponder and weigh this insufficiency in your mind. Doesn't that just echo down the canyons of your soul?

WHORES. Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius.

Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.