I think of a writer as a river: you reflect what passes before you.

And we are a people without tears. The things that moved our parents do not move us at all.

I begin to suspect that England is the most melancholy country in the world.

You aren't ill: it is just that you are made of second-rate materials

When I write stories I am like someone who is in her own country, walking along streets that she has known since she was a child, between walls and trees that are hers.

My tidiness, and my untidiness, are full of regret and remorse and complex feelings.

But that was the best time of my life, and only now that it has gone from me forever -- only now do I realize it.