Writers tend to be addicted to houses ... We work at home, indulging the agoraphobia endemic to our kind. We are immersed in our surroundings to an almost morbid degree.

When everyone thinks they know you, it's hard not to be guarded.

Sex just as a drive, as a hormonal drive, is not very interesting.

If we don't risk anything, we risk even more.

Unhappiness is our element. We come to believe we can't function without it.

All authors know that any book is a casting of runes, a reading of cards, a map of the palm and heart. We make up the ocean - then fall in. But we also write the life raft.

If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair.