“I believe in equality. Equality for everybody. No matter how stupid they are or how superior I am to them.”

“How could I insist on equality when I was unwilling to do what life demanded to be equal?”

“I am equal to a baby and to a hundred year old lady. I am equal to an airline pilot and a car mechanic. I am equal to you. You are equal to me. It's that universal.Except that it's not.”

“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”

“There is also the basic inequality of being born either with a natural talent or without one. Clever or stupid. No matter how much you try to argue against it, Dora, we are not born equal. All we can ever strive for is the equality of opportunity for those who have the ability to make the most of it.”

“The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.”