My work stops at publication. If the books don't contain in themselves their reasons for being - questions and answers - it means I was wrong to have them published.

It's the people who love us or hate us - or both - who hold together the thousands of fragments we are made of.

Those who write need that "willing suspension of disbelief ", as Coleridge called it.

My work stops at publication. If the books don't contain in themselves their reasons for being - questions and answers - it means I was wrong to have them published.

At most, I may write when I am disturbed by something. I have recently discovered the pleasure of finding written answers to written questions.

Existence is this, I thought, a start of joy, a stab of pain, an intense pleasure, veins that pulse under the skin, there is no other truth to tell.

The fictional treatment of biographical material - a treatment that for me is essential - is full of traps.