I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.

I think I was born with the impression that what happened in books was much more reasonable, and interesting, and real, in some ways, than what happened in life.

I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.

Women were the ones that held the reins, it emerged.

The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.

We stay in the house so much because I am waiting for the telephone. I seem to be back in my teens, a period I thought I would never have to endure again: my life is spent hoping for things that only someone else can bring about.

I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.