She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.

You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.

Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.'

I did feel when my mother died if anyone was going to haunt me it would be her. And she hasn't, so I think it is possibly the end.

Sometimes,' Sylvie said, 'one can mistake gratitude for love.

Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn’t even begin to solve.

What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn't that be wonderful?