Lynn Coady

When you're not sure your anger is justified, the thing to do is ask yourself exactly where it's coming from.

No one expects the doormat to stand upright, shake itself off, and amble down the street to seek its own happiness.

You can catch a scent in the wind - an idea, or a concept - and follow it. You can delve into your subconscious and see what happens, in a way you just can't when you're writing a novel.

For a while, I became an atheist; now that I'm grown up, though, I'm not hard-edged enough to be an atheist. Even though I live with a flaming atheist, I love going to temple. I love all the rituals.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.

A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.