To be known so well by someone is an unimaginable gift. But to be imagined so well by someone is even better.

But everything written has style. The list of ingredients on the side of a cornflakes box has style. And everything literary has literary style. And style is integral to a work. How something is told correlates with - more - makes what's being told. A story is its style.

There are things that can't be said, because it's hard to have to know them.

The whole point is, we can forget. It’s important that we forget some things. Otherwise we’d go round the world carrying a hodload of stuff we just don’t need.

It is important to know the stories and histories of things, even if all we know is that we don't know.

[Property] is a brilliant, chillingly revelatory piece of fiction, a work of craft, economy and such good merciless observation-one of those rare, crucial novels illuminating a history we think we know and understand so that after we've read it we'll never forget its truths.

I don't want a tombstone. You could carve on it 'She never actually wanted a tombstone.'