In our society mothers take the place elsewhere occupied by the Fates, the System, Negroes, Communism or Reactionary Imperialist Plots; mothers go on getting blamed until they're eighty, but shouldn't take it personally.

It beats me how Freud could say "What do women want?" as if we all must want the same thing.

As I look around the West End these days, it seems to me that outside every thin girl is a fat man, trying to get in.

There's comfort to an awful old dressing-gown a pretty peignoir is powerless to provide, and aging bra elastic, is, I suspect, as near to liberation as most women ever get.

Things a mother should know: how to comfort a son without exactly saying Daddy was wrong.

Children and zip fasteners do not respond to force ... except occasionally.

I suppose we all share this pipe-dream of being able to reach out a hand and find anything at will; what is amazing is that we think that good filing could somehow make it comes true. On the contrary: putting a letter into a filing system is like releasing your ferret in the Hampton Court maze.