Every time I write a book, I've probably taken five years off my life.

The distinctive feature of my family was intolerance of sensitivity and emotion - everything's great, it all has to be great all the time and why do you have to spoil it? Whereas probably the most fundamental and important thing to me has been defending my right to tell the truth about how I feel.

Having your second child, in case you were wondering, is a lot harder than having your first, except for those people who find it easier. I'm afraid I don't have the latest figures to confirm this.

Divorce also entails the beginning of a supposition that that familial reality might have obstructed one's ability to perceive others.

It's a pretty brutal process, having a baby.

The true self seeks release, not constraint. It doesnt want to be corseted in a sonnet or made to learn a system of musical notations. It wants liberation, which is why very often it fastens on the novel, for the novel seems spacious, undefined, free.

Childhood, after all, is not an ending, but rather a state full of potent curiosity.