When I was a ten-year old bookworm and used to kiss the dust jacket pictures of authors as if they were icons, it used to amaze me that these remote people could provoke me to love.

All my forebears worked for a living. My grandfather painted portraits. My mother too. My aunt painted seascapes.

Loving someone is a loss of freedom - but one doesn't think of it as loss because one gains so much else.

Creativity demands nothing less than all you have. Talent alone is never enough.

I knew I was in England by the smell.

If we can be sufficient unto ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs.

Is there a phrase in the English language more fraught with menace than a tax audit?