Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book. Well, Mumsy, no, not really. Your beloved large-print sagas of rags, riches, and heartbreak were no camouflage against the miseries trained on you by the tennis ball launcher of life, were they? But, yes, Mum, there again, you have a point. Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.

If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.

Perhaps all human interaction is about wanting and getting.

Writing is such a damn lonely sickness.

All revolutions are the sheerest fantasy until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities.

The truth of a myth...is not in its words but its patterns.

She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.