It is living, not thinking, as a feminist that has become the challenge.

As it stands, motherhood is a sort of wilderness through which each woman hacks her way, part martyr, part pioneer; a turn of events from which some women derive feelings of heroism, while others experience a sense of exile from the world they knew.

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.

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

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

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

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