It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies- it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it.

There's a perception that novels can't usually allow for your kind of absolute attention to detail.

The golden age of Luncheon Vouchers ended ten yearsago. For ten years Mickey had been saying, "The goldenage of Luncheon Vouchers is over." And that's what Archieloved about O'Connell's. Everything was remembered,nothing was lost. History was never revised orreinterpreted, adapted or whitewashed. It was as solid andas simple as the encrusted egg on the clock.

When people use that stream of consciousness, it's kind of just a term they use for anything that looks slightly different on the page.

This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Writing is my way of expressing - and thereby eliminating - all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.