Everything Is Surprising, Rightly Seen.

I Grew Up With That Completely Fictive Idea Of Motherhood, Where The Mother Never Strayed From The Kitchen. All The Women In My Books Are Very Afraid That If They Do Anything With Their Minds They Won't Be Complete Women. I Don't Think My Daughters' Generation Has That Feeling.

I Hated Being A Novelist When I Was 20 - I Had Nothing To Write About.

They Took To Silence. They Touched Each Other Without Comment And Without Progression. A Hand On A Hand, A Clothed Arm, Resting On An Arm. An Ankle Overlapping An Ankle, As They Sat On A Beach, And Not Removed. One Night They Fell Asleep, Side By Side... He Slept Curled Against Her Back, A Dark Comma Against Her Pale Elegant Phrase.

I Know That Part Of The Reason I Read Tolkien When I'm Ill Is That There Is An Almost Total Absence Of Sexuality In His World, Which Is Restful.

On Buses And Trains, I Always Think About The Inexhaustible Variety Of Human Genes. We See Types, And Occasionally Twins, But Never Doubles. All Faces Are Unique, And This Is Exhilarating, Despite The Increasingly Plastic Similarity Of Tv Stars And Actors.