Deborah Meyler

“Music is like poetry, It can stop you thinking. But it can also open you up.”

“Aristotle didn't have a problem with abortion," she says. "Oh, well, good, that's a comfort," I say.”

“It's a nebulous thing, but it is my belief—my experience also—that women do not have the need to collect that men have.”

“I look up at the ceiling, at all the hardcover fiction. So very few people want it. It is operating as insulation rather than stock. The argument rages on about whether it is better to have books or ebooks, but while everyone gets heated about the choices, the hardcover fiction molders quietly away.”

“People write for ego gratification, not money.”

“But in this case,” he continues, tracing the line of the plasterwork with one finger, “I feel that there is one cliché that sums up my position so admirably that it would be pure egotism to attempt a more interesting periphrasis. Plain speaking, therefore, there is to be.“There is undoubtedly a strong possibility, notwithstanding the vagaries of contingency and misfortune, that my son mighthave fallen—or might, we could say, have voluntarily jumped, in accordance with the ethical codes with which he has been brought up—for a play you have made with some success, although, as I am persuaded you would concede, very little originality.”Plain speaking if you’re Henry James, perhaps.”