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

An eating disorder epidemic suggests that love and disgust are being jointly marketed, as it were; that wherever the proposition might first have come from, the unacceptability of the female body has been disseminated culturally.

I suppose, I said, it is one definition of love, the belief in something that only the two of you can see.

I am a good and interested mother - which has surprised me.

The creativity of childhood was often surrendered amid feelings of unworthiness. So the idea that ­others are demanding to be given it back - to be "taught" - is disturbing.

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.

People are least aware of others when demonstrating their own power over them.