Books that change you, even later in life, give you a kind of electrical shock as the world takes a different shape.
What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.
Young girls are sad. They like to be; it makes them feel strong.
History, writing, infect after a time a man's sense of himself.
When I was a child - in wartime, pre-television - books were my life.
Louis de Bernires is in the direct line that runs through Dickens and Evelyn Waugh. . .he has only to look into his world, one senses, for it to rush into reality, colours and touch and taste.