There was no such thing as defeat if you didn't accept it.

Novelists... fashioning nets to sustain and support the reader as he falls helplessly through the chaos of his own existence.

Words are not simple things: they take unto themselves, as they have through time, power and meaning.

Never defend yourself; agree with your critics, it takes the wind out of their sails.

You will find that women who are pregnant often don't want to be and women who aren't desperately envy those who are. Labour wards are always full of very punitive people.

Nowadays most people wear black most of the time anyway: go to a literary party and one would imagine everyone there was in perpetual mourning for their lives.

I know that I'm a real writer because sometimes I write a story just because I want to; not because someone's told me to.