If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea.
There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone.
The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet - when they do meet, their victims lie strewn all round.
Intimacies between women often go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending in small talk.
Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms.
That is partly why women marry - to keep up the fiction of being in the hub of things.
