I have no sense of a model or predecessor when I write a memoir: For me, the form exists as a method of processing material that retains too many connections to life to be approached strictly and aesthetically. A memoir is a risk, a one-off, a bastard child.

The British have always made terrible parents.

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

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.

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

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

What other grown-up gets told how to do their job so often as a writer?