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.

You have to be careful what you imagine, because the act of imagining is the act of encouraging yourself to be a certain kind of person.

Sometimes it seems the only accomplishment my education ever bestowed on me was the ability to think in quotations.

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

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

There are some writers who wrote too much. There are others who wrote enough. There are yet others who wrote nothing like enough to satisfy their admirers, and Jane Austen is certainly one of these.

I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I'll be all right; I've got a few veg.