I'm a novelist, not a social scientist or a commentator.

Hope is like one of those orchids that grows around toxic waste: lovely in itself - and an assertion, if you like, of indefatigable good - but a sure sign that something nasty lies underneath.

As writers go, I have a skin of average thickness. I am pleased by a good review, disappointed by a bad. None of it penetrates far enough to influence the thing I write next.

That's writing for you: when you make space for passion, it doesn't turn up.

How can there be so many mothers in the world but so little sense of what it might be to become one?

The creativity of childhood was often surrendered amid feelings of unworthiness. So the idea that ­others are demanding to be given it back - to be "taught" - is disturbing.

Childhood, after all, is not an ending, but rather a state full of potent curiosity.

Even if they knew the truth of their own feelings, most mothers would be socially and emotionally incapable of revealing it.

Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

Hope is one of those no-win-no-fee things, and although it needs some encouragement to survive, its existence doesn't necessarily prove anything.

People are least aware of others when demonstrating their own power over them.

Comfort is no test of truth. Truth is often far from being comfortable.

When there is no cure, give the hope and share the possibility. Shine the light of miracle in the darkness of impossibility.

Sometimes, we are unable to break free because we are held captive by divine assignment because in our problem God has given us a unique purpose.

Dead is not an option ".

Men often fall in love at first sight

I've given up looking for a boyfriend. That's not to say I won't be interested if the right guy comes along. But I'm not in a hurry.

Eating a slice of white bread is like eating pure sugar.

The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.

I take losses very personal and very serious.

The trouble with addiction is that you can park the car but you can never switch off the engine or stop yourself from hearing the revs.