In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.

Country manners. Even if somebody phones up to tell you your house is burning down, they ask first how you are.

They were all in their early thirties. An age at which it is sometimes hard to admit that what you are living is your life.

I want my stories to move people ... to feel some kind of reward from the writing.

I would have a flick of fear, as in a dream when you find yourself in the wrong building or have forgotten the time for the exam and understand that this is only the tip of some shadowy cataclysm or lifelong mistake.

Who can ever say the perfect thing to the poet about his poetry?

Now that I think of it, she looked splendid. I wish I had met her somewhere else. I wish I had appreciated her as she deserved. I wish that everything had gone differently.