Cloisters, ancient libraries ... I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.

I suppose I'm the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it's the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other.

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.

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

I've never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none.

Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.

What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.