In 1952, I had gone to England on a literary pilgrimage, but what I also saw, even at that distance from the blitz, were bombed-out ruins and an enervated society, while the continent was still, psychologically, in the grip of its recent atrocities.

Two things remain irretrievable: time and a first impression.

Is there a word more passionate than passion? Obsession, total immersion, the feeling that everything else doesn't matter.

I wanted to use what I was, to be what I was born to be - not to have a 'career', but to be that straightforward obvious unmistakable animal, a writer.

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.

Much of the academy on the humanities side, English departments in particular, no longer write what can pass for normal English.

It's true that the young who now flock to script writing, or producing and directing, to fulfill the demands of these new devices would, in an earlier period, have been submitting to magazines and working on their first novels. But even in the midst of all these "digital products," the wonder of it is that there are still so many young writers who continue to believe in the venerable print novel as the corridor to fame and fortune.