And there isn't any way that one can get rid of the guilt of having a nice body by saying that one can serve society with it, because that would end up with oneself as what? There simply doesn't seem to be any moral place for flesh.

Family life itself, that safest, most traditional, most approved of female choices, is not a sanctuary: It is, perpetually, a dangerous place.

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.

Nothing succeeds, they say, like success. And certainly nothing fails like failure.

I'd rather be at the end of a dying tradition, which I admire, than at the beginning of a tradition which I deplore.

If I knew what the meanings of my books were, I wouldn't have bothered to write them.

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