The real art is not to come up with extraordinary clever words but to make ordinary simple words do extraordinary things. To use the language that we all use and to make amazing things occur.

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.

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

I came from a lower-middle-class postwar family in a time of austerity and retrenchment, with no one in the family who was in any way artistic or a potential mentor to a budding writer, and yet this is what I became.

I don't reread my books.

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

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