The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free.

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.

I know that part of the reason I read Tolkien when I'm ill is that there is an almost total absence of sexuality in his world, which is restful.

Our days weave together the simple pleasures of daily life, which we should never take for granted, and the higher pleasures of Art and Thought which we may now taste as we please, with none to forbid or criticise.

Creative Writing was not a form of psychotherapy, in ways both sublime and ridiculuous, it clearly was, precisely that.

I don't only write about English literature; I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.

Harm can come about without will or action. But will and action can avert harm.