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.

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

Divorce also entails the beginning of a supposition that that familial reality might have obstructed one's ability to perceive others.

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.

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

The true self seeks release, not constraint. It doesnt want to be corseted in a sonnet or made to learn a system of musical notations. It wants liberation, which is why very often it fastens on the novel, for the novel seems spacious, undefined, free.

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