When you become a parent, or a teacher, you turn into a manager of this whole system. You become the person controlling the bubble of innocence around a child, regulating it.

Its was one of those events which at a crucial stage in one's development arrive to challenge and stretch one to the limit of one's ability and beyond, so that thereafter one has a new standard by which to judge oneself.

I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?

I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.

There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.

I cannot start a story or chapter without knowing how it ends. ... Of course, it rarely ends that way.