Reality might be described as the eternal equipoise of positive and negative.

Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

I was aware, in those early days of motherhood, that my behaviour was strange to the people who knew me well. It was as though I had been brainwashed, taken over by a cult religion. And yet this cult, motherhood, was not a place where I could actually live. Like any cult, it demanded a complete surrender of identity to belong to it.

It is interesting how keen people are for you to do something they would never dream of doing themselves, how enthusiasticall y they drive you to your own destruction.

Even if they knew the truth of their own feelings, most mothers would be socially and emotionally incapable of revealing it.

There are certain types of slightly hysterical human characters who, rather than creating, walk around with a sense of their own potential - it's as if they themselves were art objects. They feel as if their lives are written narratives, or pieces of music.

Like the child, the creative writing student is posited as a centre of vulnerable creativity, needful of attention and authority.