“ I need words and print... I need print like an addict. I could live without it, perhaps. But I hope I never have to try. Margaret Drabble
“ Family life itself, that safest, most traditional, most approved of female choices, is not a sanctuary: It is, perpetually, a dangerous place. Margaret Drabble
“ The middle years caught between children and parents free of neither: the past stretches back too densely it is too thickly populated the future has not yet thinned out. Margaret Drabble
“ It is to be doubted whether anybody who said good-bye to Bert had any faith or interest whatsoever in the life everlasting. This life had, some of them thought, been quite bad enough. Margaret Drabble
“ Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it. Margaret Drabble
“ Nothing succeeds, they say, like success. And certainly nothing fails like failure. Margaret Drabble
“ I actually remember feeling delight at two o'clock in the morning when the baby woke for his feed because I so longed to have another look at him. Margaret Drabble
“ What really annoys me are the ones who write to say, I am doing your book for my final examinations and could you please tell me what the meaning of it is. I find it just so staggering--that you're su… Margaret Drabble
“ It was easier to ignore the consideration of paternal genes then than it would be now. We did not then consider ourselves held in the genetic trap. We thought each infant was born pure and new and hol… Margaret Drabble
“ Fran had from an unsuitably early age been attracted by the heroic death, the famous last words, the tragic farewell. Her parents had on their shelves a copy of Brewer's 'Dictionary of Phase and fable… Margaret Drabble
“ Auntie Phyl's last months in the care home were extra pieces. Age is unnecessary. Some of us, like my mother, are fortunate enough to die swiftly and suddenly, in full possession of our faculties and… Margaret Drabble
“ Minor talents or failing talents ask much of those who associate with them. They suck, they cling, they sour, they devour, and they can kill their hosts. Disappointment is a deadly companion. We didn'… Margaret Drabble
