All nature's creatures join to express nature's purpose. Somewhere in their mounting and mating, rutting and butting is the very secret of nature itself.

All novelists must form their personal pacts in some way with the slowness of their craft. There are some who demand of themselves a 'rate of production,' for whom it's a matter of pride to complete, say, a book every year.

And I didn't know I loved her till I'd dreamt of her. I didn't know it was the real thing until an illusion had signalled it.

Ah, children, pity level-crossing keepers, pity lock-keepers - pity lighthouse-keepers - pity all the keepers of this world (pity even school teachers), caught between their conscience and the bleak horizon.

What we wish upon the future is very often the image of some lost, imagined past.

Novels, in my experience, are slow in coming, and once I've begun them I know I have years rather than months of work ahead of me.

London is like no other city I know in its ability to become beautiful. You can suddenly turn a corner and there are odd moments - of light, of weather.