My great-grandfather was a self-taught man, and his library was extraordinary. I read the lot.

Ive learned never to try and force words to come.

... I had never given much credence to the phenomenon of "writer's block". I was more inclined to think of it as "writer's impatience", and to follow Arthur Koestler's dictum: "Soak; and wait.

Possessive parents rarely live long enough to see the fruits of their selfishness.

I learnt that I must never finish a book with nothing else to do.

I loathe crowds. I especially dont like cities. A city involves biomass. And biomass gets to me.

When you start, the world of publishing seems like a great cathedral citadel of talent, resisting attempts to let you inside. It isn't like that at all. It may be more difficult now, and take longer than when I started to write, but there's a great, empty warehouse out there looking for simple talent.