I do not want to be a relative and passive being, anywhere. I want to live and love and write.

No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.

I'm not very interested in myself. I do have a deep moral belief that you should always look out at other things and not be self-centred.

On buses and trains, I always think about the inexhaustible variety of human genes. We see types, and occasionally twins, but never doubles. All faces are unique, and this is exhilarating, despite the increasingly plastic similarity of TV stars and actors.

I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the second world war.

They took to silence. They touched each other without comment and without progression. A hand on a hand, a clothed arm, resting on an arm. An ankle overlapping an ankle, as they sat on a beach, and not removed. One night they fell asleep, side by side... He slept curled against her back, a dark comma against her pale elegant phrase.

That is human nature, that people come after you, willingly enough, provided only that you no longer love or want them.