I respond to the sound of London being spoken - to the sound of London.

I like the world we've got. If there is anything special and magical, I have to find it in the ordinary stuff.

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

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

Part of the very impulse of writing for me is actually wanting to get away from myself.

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.

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.