Sometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future.

If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.

The past is a cupboard full of light and all you have to do is find the key that opens the door.

Everyone said, 'Well, you're very old for a first novel,' and I said, 'How do you write when you haven't lived? How do you write when you have no experience? How do you write straight out of university?

Men had no purpose on earth whereas women were gods walking unrecognized among them.

(although anyone with half a brain must surely be mired in existential gloom all the time)

Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.