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.

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.

Scenery can be a violent stimulant.

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.

Lord knows what incommunicable small terrors infants go through, unknown to all. We disregard them, we say they forget, because they have not the words to make us remember. ... By the time they learn to speak they have forgotten the details of their complaints, and so we never know. They forget so quickly, we say, because we cannot contemplate the fact that they never forget.

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

Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it.