Writing, more than any other art, is indexed to the worthiness of the self because it is identified in peoples minds with emotion.

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

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

In domestic life the woman's value is inherent, unquantifiable; at home she exchanges proven values for mythological ones. She "wants" to be at home, and because she is a woman she's allowed to want it. This desire is her mystique, it is both what enables her to domesticate herself and what disempowers her.

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

I remain fascinated by where you go as a woman once you are a mother, and if you ever come back.

Hope is like one of those orchids that grows around toxic waste: lovely in itself - and an assertion, if you like, of indefatigable good - but a sure sign that something nasty lies underneath.