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

And no, it wasn't shame I now felt, or guilt, but something rarer in my life and stronger than both: remorse. A feeling which is more complicated, curdled, and primeval. Whose chief characteristic is that nothing can be done about it: too much time has passed, too much damage has been done, for amends to be made.

Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.

Well, they each seem to do one thing well enough, but fail to realize that literature depends on doing several things well at the same time.

It took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist's studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan.

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

When you are writing fiction your task is to reflect the fullest complications of the world