There are some people who cannot get onto a train without imagining that they are about to voyage into the significant unknown; as though the notion of movement were inseparably connected with the notion of discovery, as though each displacement of the body were a displacement of the soul.

Because if one has an image, however dim and romantic, of a journey's end, one may, in the end, surely reach it, after no matter how many detours and deceptions and abandonings of hope. And hope could never have been entirely abandoned, even in the worst days.

Poverty, therefore, was comparative. One measured it by a sliding scale. One was always poor, in terms of those who were richer.

I need words and print... I need print like an addict. I could live without it, perhaps. But I hope I never have to try.

I used to be a reasonably careless and adventurous person before I had children; now I am morbidly obsessed by seat-belts and constantly afraid that low-flying aircraft will drop on my children's school.

The women are always vixens or monsters. They can't just be normal people in the book.

On one thing professionals and amateurs agree: mothers can't win.