Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn – to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise...
I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them.
I seem finally to have stopped worrying about Elinor, and age. She seems now to be perfectly normal – about twenty-five, a witty control freak. I like her but I can see how she would drive you mad. She’s just the sort of person you’d want to get drunk, just to make her giggling and silly.
Jane reminds us that God is in his heaven, the monarch on his throne and the pelvis firmly beneath the ribcage. Apparently rock and roll liberated the pelvis and it hasn’t been the same since.
Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn’t have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They’re kinder.
Being disabled should not mean being disqualified from having access to every aspect of life.
Maybe I don’t take myself so seriously any more. And I don’t care how I’m judged. I’m past all that.
I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them. I firmly believe there are books whose greatness actually enables you to live, to do something. And sometimes, human beings need story and narrative more than they need nourishment and food.
Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn’t listening.
I don’t think people understand that being poor means you have to work from dawn until dusk just to survive through the day. I think there’s some notion that poor people lie about all day not doing anything.
Constantly worrying about your reflection and criticizing your body, shape and size is an act of violence against yourself.
There is that thing about not working with animals and children – I don’t think that’s true. Although you should never work with donkeys.
You can’t imagine what satisfaction can be gotten from throwing a pie into someone’s face.
Just write. It doesn’t matter what you write. Just sit at your desk and write.
When husbands and fathers leave, their wives and daughters tend to value themselves less as a result.
A lot of very beautiful women can be a pain because all they’re thinking about is how they look.
I do think that despite my best efforts to resist it, I am now a grown-up. It’s due to lots of very difficult decisions that you make over a long period of time – about motherhood, wifehood, and work, and all the things that one has to make decisions about.
If you’ve got to my age, you’ve probably had your heart broken many times. So it’s not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.