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.

You could time a suburban story by your watch: it lasts as long as it takes a small furry animal that's lonely to find friends, or a small furry animal that's lost to find its parents; it lasts as long as a quick avowal of love; it lasts precisely as long as the average parent is disposed on a Tuesday night to spend reading aloud to children.

Even if they knew the truth of their own feelings, most mothers would be socially and emotionally incapable of revealing it.

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

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

It is interesting how keen people are for you to do something they would never dream of doing themselves, how enthusiasticall y they drive you to your own destruction.

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