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.

Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

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

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

Parenthood, like death, is an event for which it is nearly impossible to be prepared. It brings you into a new relationship with the fact of your own existence, a relationship in which one may be rendered helpless.

To become a mother is to learn a whole language - to relearn it, perhaps, as it was the tongue to which we were born - and hence gain entrance to a forgotten world of comprehension.

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