That's the way it is: life inculdes a lot of empty space. We are one-tenth living tissue, nine-tenths water; life is one-tenth Here and Now, nine-tenths a history lesson. For most of the time the Here and Now is neither now nor here.

How quick and rushing life can sometimes seem, when at the same time it's so slow and sweet and everlasting.

My mother was a great bringer-up of children. My memories are of a sense of security and comfort.

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

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.

When I am writing, I'm very much on the ground, on the same ground my characters are treading.

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.