My Real Children starts quietly, then suddenly takes you on two roller-coaster rides at once, swooping dizzily through a double panorama and ending in a sort of super Sophie's Choice. A daring tour de force.

My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world, and exiles me from it.

The great authors share their souls with us- "literally.

Having one king, one god, one belief, they can act single-mindedly.

What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.

I never knew anybody . . . who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details.

When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.