“Perhaps I should have been one [some sort of a professional religious]; I like to think a monk notable for his austerities, the voice of one crying in the wilderness; but more probably a tiresome Unitarian in Walsall who writes incessantly to the local paper.”

“Over the years I have learned that motherhood is much like an austere religious order, the joining of which obligates one to relinquish all claims to personal possessions.”

“--A priest? I said. --A monk or some such. One of those worker guys. Liberation theowhateveritis. --Theologian, said the other. --One of those guys who thinks that Jesus was on welfare.”

“I am persecuted because of my writings, I think, therefore, that I should write some more.”

“I wanted to cry but I didn't, I probably should have cried, I should have drowned us there in the room ending our suffering.”

“I have often been charged with falsehood and hypocrisy, yet there lives not the man who would more gladly than I speak truthfully and lay bare his heart; but as I have not one idea, one feeling in common with the people who surround me, as the very first word I should speak truthfully would cause a general hue and cry, I have preferred to keep silent, or, if I do speak, to utter only stupid commonplaces which everyone has agreed to believe in.”