I identified with Pip from 'Great Expectations,' especially when I was younger; I had the same kind of gaucheness and uncertainty.

I work three days at home, and two days in the British Library or the London Library, just to get out of the house and hide from the children.

Maybe we've grown out of each other.

Just kidding' was exactly what people wrote when they meant every word.

I know that for every reader who has lost the habit or can't find the time, there are people who've never enjoyed reading and question the value of literature, either as entertainment or education, or believe that a love of books, and of fiction in particular, is sentimental or frivolous.

All his words and actions would now be fit for his daughter’s ears and eyes. Life would be lived as if under [her] constant scrutiny. He would never do anything that might cause her pain or anxiety or embarrassment and there would be nothing, absolutely nothing in his life to be ashamed of anymore.

Welcome to the graveyard of ambition.