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.

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

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

My children are living, thinking human beings. It isn't in my power to regret them, for they belong to themselves.

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.

A neighbor is something that belongs to the stable world of home life, the thing that lives next door to you.

That's writing for you: when you make space for passion, it doesn't turn up.