When It's In A Book

Finding Yourself In A Hole, At The Bottom Of A Hole, In Almost Total Solitude, And Discovering That Only Writing Can Save You. To Be Without The Slightest Subject For A Book, The Slightest Idea For A Book, Is To Find Yourself, Once Again, Before A Book. A Vast Emptiness. A Possible Book. Before Nothing. Before Something Like Living, Naked Writing, Like Something Terrible, Terrible To Overcome.

All That Remains Of That Minute Is Time In All Its Purity, Bone-white Time.

A Woman's Work, From The Time She Gets Up To The Time She Goes To Bed, Is As Hard As A Day At War, Worse Than A Man's Working Day. ... To Men, Women's Work Was Like The Rain-bringing Clouds, Or The Rain Itself. The Task Involved Was Carried Out Every Day As Regularly As Sleep. So Men Were Happy - Men In The Middle Ages, Men At The Time Of The Revolution, And Men In 1986: Everything In The Garden Was Lovely.

What Stops You Killing Yourself When You're Intoxicated Out Of Your Mind Is The Thought That Once You're Dead You Won't Be Able To Drink Any More.

For That's What A Woman, A Mother Wants - To Teach Her Children To Take An Interest In Life. She Knows It's Safer For Them To Be Interested In Other People's Happiness Than To Believe In Their Own.