Like the child, the creative writing student is posited as a centre of vulnerable creativity, needful of attention and authority.

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.

Wisdom begins in knowing the self.

The more cashless our society becomes, the more our moral compass slips.

When we change the way we communicate, we change society

Thank you, Deke. You are very good to me.” “I know, ” he smirks. “Can I get back in your bed now?

Nobody wants anything bad to happen; the other side isn't evil.

Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own: [I hate a sage who is not wise for himself]

Every thing is changing every minute.

A sleeping bag is a tortilla for a human.

Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.

Every kid has something they're good at, that you hope they find and gravitate toward.