But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave issues. People who say they are too positive probably havent read them.

Painters aren't expected to paint bleak pictures, are they?

We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters.

We don't forget.... Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, of smells, of places, of little things that happened to us and which came back, unexpectedly, to remind us who we are.

A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?

Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.

I'm very interested in tea. I wouldn't mind being involved in some aspect of the tea industry.