Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.

We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.

Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.

Of course my standards are out of date! That's why they're called standards.

I'm for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.

No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.

There's very little in the substance of [THE LADY IN THE VAN] which is not fact though some adjustments have had to be made. Over the years Miss Shepherd was visited by a succession of social workers so the character in the play is a composite figure. . . . A composite too are the neighbours, Pauline and Rufus, though I have made Rufus a publisher in remembrance of my neighbour, the late Colin Haycraft, the proprietor of Duckworth's.