I read ' Treasure Island' for the first time at university. And I started to notice then how unresolved some things were. Later, I realised that Stevenson was interested in sequels, and I wondered whether he would have gone back to it had he lived longer.

I'm ensuring my place in heaven.

Poems are a hotline to our hearts, and we forget this emotional power at our peril

I deeply adored my mum. She was an extraordinary person, even for the prejudice I'm likely to have. She was beautiful, amusing, a tremendous elaborator of things into comic proportions and extravagant in her imagination.

I get up at 5.30am, sluice myself and have two Weetabix and some mint tea, before starting to write by 6am.

Like a lot of people, for a long time I thought that the road to hell is paved with bad sequels.

I am a vigilant monarchist. I want to see things evolve. The direction the monarchy seems to be moving in - towards a more mainland-European model - is one I would feel sympathetic about.