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

We who were born were not witnesses to our birth: like death, it is something we are forever after trying to catch sight of.

I absolutely don't dislike children - I would choose their company over adult company any time.

It's a pretty brutal process, having a baby.

Leaving things behind and starting again is a way of coping with difficulties. I learnt very early in my life that I was able to leave a place and still remain myself.

How can there be so many mothers in the world but so little sense of what it might be to become one?

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.