The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.

I can walk. It's just that I'm so rich I don't need to.

God doesn't do notes, either. Did Jesus Christ say, "Can I be excused the Crucifixion?" No!

I think the writer's quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I'd have thought, slightly more risky.

We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.

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