The sentences I write have their roots in song and poetry, and take their bearings from music and painting, as much as from the need to impart mere information, or mirror anything. I am not a realist writer, even if I seem like one.

I first went to Barcelona in 1975 after university, and I stayed for three years. I learnt Catalan because that's what everyone speaks in the mountains. They speak English to foreigners, but what people say to each other is much more important than what they say to you.

John McGovern taught me that it's OK to write repeatedly about the same things.

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.

in skies of deepening blue the moon, heaven's queen was now afloat

Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

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.