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.

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.

I'm waiting for the day when my children cease to find my domestic propriety reassuring and actually find it annoying.

I have absolutely no concept of work, except for university. But I like to talk to people a lot about their jobs.

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

Reality might be described as the eternal equipoise of positive and negative.

Help is dangerous because it exists outside the human economy: the only payment for help is gratitude.