I'm not senile," I snapped. "If I burn the house down it will be on purpose.

My parents are like younger, urchinlike brothers and sisters whose faces are dirty and who blurt out humiliating things that can neither be anticipated nor controlled. I sigh and make the best of it. I feel I’m older than they are, much older. I feel ancient.

All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.

A writer's age at the time of a work's composition is never irrelevant.

How could I be sleeping with this particular man.... Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, my father used to say; it bothered me, I didn't see why they would want to skin a cat even one way.