Of Course I Wanted Children. Bright, Gorgeous, Loving Children. I Could Almost See Them.
I Do Try To Live Every Day As If It Were My Last, And It Has Worked For Me So Far.
I Have An Irregular Heartbeat, So That Means A Fair Amount Of Medication - And I Have Blood Pressure Pills, Too, But No Vitamins Or Supplements.
When I Was Younger, I Avoided Exercise Or Anything Strenuous. I Didn't Even Enjoy Walking. As I Got Older, I Spent So Much Time Marking Books Or Sitting At A Desk Writing That There Was No Room For Exercise - Not That I Would Have Bothered Anyway.
I Never Wanted To Write. I Just Wrote Letters Home From A Kibbutz In Israel To Reassure My Parents That I Was Still Alive And Well Fed And Having A Great Time. They Thought These Letters Were Brilliant And Sent Them To A Newspaper. So I Became A Writer By Accident.
When My Sister Joan Arrived, I Asked If I Could Swap Her For A Rabbit. When I Think What A Marvellous Friend She's Been, I'm So Glad My Parents Didn't Take Me At My Word.
My Mother Was A Trained Nurse, And She'd Tell Me That Patients Would Fight As They Were Administered Anaesthetic, Grappling To Get The Gas Mask Off Their Face.
Success Is Not Like A Cake That Needs To Be Divided. It's More Like A Heap Of Stones - A Cairn. If Someone Is Successful, They Add A Stone To The Cairn. It Gets Very High And Can Be Seen From All Over The World. That's How I See It.
I Was The Big, Bossy Older Sister, Full Of Enthusiasms, Mad Fantasies, Desperate Urges To Be Famous, And Anxious To Be A Saint - A Settled Sort Of Saint, Not One Who Might Have To Suffer Or Die For Her Faith.