I got very keen on biography because I wanted to change it. I wanted to stretch the form. I think of it as a way of capturing souls.

Ingratitude is the frost that nips the flower even as it opens, that shrivels the generous apple on the branch, that freezes the fountain in mid-flow and numbs the hand, even in the very act of giving. It is a sin of silence, absence and omission, as winter's sin is a lack of light; a sin against charity, which otherwise warms the heart and, in the truest sense, makes the world turn.

Some sins have no season. We are as likely to be angry in November as to lose our rag in March ... There is, though, something autumnal about greed, apple-cheeked and wheat-crowned, purpled knee-high in grapes; something summery in sloth, as the hammock creaks in the fly-drowsy heat; and more than a tickle of spring in lust, as birds pair and the sap rises. Among these, ingratitude is winter, the worst of seasons.

I got very keen on biography because I wanted to change it. I wanted to stretch the form. I think of it as a way of capturing souls.