If love means that one person absorbs the other, then no real relationship exists any more. Love evaporates; there is nothing left to love. The integrity of self is gone.

Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman's natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.

Families are nothing other than the idolatry of duty.

There are always women who will take men on their own terms. If I were a man I wouldn't bother to change while there are women like that around.

I devote my whole life to my family, and that's the least I could do, because there's only one me and 14 of them. I have to give all my energy and all of me to my kids.

I think Australia is just a great place to bring up a family.

I grew up on the South Island of New Zealand, in a city chosen and beloved by my parents for its proximity to the mountains - Christchurch is two hours distant from the worn saddle of Arthur's Pass, the mountain village that was and is my father's spiritual touchstone, his chapel and cathedral in the wild.

My parents weren't married. It wasn't like my dad up and left. I maintained a steady relationship with my grandparents. My dad's mother is my nana, and I'm closer to her than almost anybody in this world.