Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other’s bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love – think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them!

There's nothing wrong or evil about having a bad day. There's everything wrong with making others have to have it with you.

It's important to have people in your life who will applaud your ambition.

My own approach has always been to push intense emotions down and attempt to deal with them later. When I was younger, I was terrified to express anger because it would often kick-start a horrible reaction in the men in my life.

The task of organizing human happiness needs the active cooperation of man and woman: it cannot be relegated to one half of the world.

I didn't hear anybody talking about the plight of a soldier coming back home and what he'd gone through. That was why I wrote about that stuff. If somebody else had done it, I probably wouldn't have touched the subject.