Christianity has kept itself going for centuries on hope alone, and has perpetrated all manner of naughtiness in the meantime.

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

The British have always made terrible parents.

Hope is one of those no-win-no-fee things, and although it needs some encouragement to survive, its existence doesn't necessarily prove anything.

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.

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

Every time I write a book, I've probably taken five years off my life.