At times ... one is downright thankful for the self-absorption of other people.

Actors between plays are like ghosts looking for bodies to inhabit.

I'm always aware that I risk being taken for a neurasthenic prima donna when I explain to someone who wants 'just a little' of my time that five minutes of the wrong kind of distraction can ruin a working day.

If there is such a thing as sin in this world, I think it must be shutting oneself up against hope.

I confess, right at the start, to the doubts - and sometimes outright dreads - that go with me as I climb the stairs to my study in the morning, coffee mug in hand: I have to admit to the habitual apprehension mixed with a sort of reverence, as I light the incense . . . and wonder: what is going to happen today? Will anything happen? Will the angel come today?

Some things arrive in their own mysterious hour, on their own terms and not yours, to be seized or relinquished forever.

Much of the activity we think of as writing is, actually, getting ready to write.