Ever since I could first write I have been doing so. When I was taught how to write and read at school, I made up my mind that this was what I love to do best and this was the world I was going to occupy.

When I was very young, I used to share much of what I wrote with my family, but as I got older and more self-conscious, it became a much more private process.

I aim to tell the truth about any subject, not a romance or fantasy, not avoid the truth.

What a sense of possession, of confidence, it gave one to have pockets, to shove one's fists into them, as if in simply owning pockets one owned riches, owned independence.

The wheel turns and turns and turns: it never stops and stands still.

I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.

Do you know anyone who would - secretly, sincerely, in his innermost self - really prefer to return to childhood?