I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway and I would disapprove of it.

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

When a book comes from the publisher and you see it for the first time... Of course it's not remotely like seeing a baby for the first time, but I can remember with each book what room I was in when I opened it. That would be excitement, though, I think. Not pride.

I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point.

Between the ages of 8 and 12 it was difficult to know what my father was saying, and he moved very slowly, and then he died.

I wrote every day between the ages of 12 and 20 when I stopped because I went to Barcelona, where life was too exciting to write.

She was lonely without Blunt, but she was lonelier at the idea that the world went on as though she had not loved him.