A society that doesn't know any longer how to observe every death with proper rituals, that does not know that death is not the end, but only part of the journey, has lost its way, has had the very heart of its humanity torn out.

I was brought up a Catholic and I was quite fervent, because I was sent to a convent school.

The female form provides the solution in which the essence itself is held; she is passio, and acted upon, the male is actio, the mover.

The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.

One of the achievements of our generation of feminists was to emancipate women from the division between being interested in clothes and appearance, and being serious and ambitious. I am of the first generation that could go to Biba, wear miniskirts and get a degree.

The more one knows fairy tales the less fantastical they appear; they can be vehicles of the grimmest realism, expressing hope against all the odds with gritted teeth.