Of course there are times when I hate London, but equally there are times when I can walk 'round a corner and I really feel that this is my place.

I don't reread my books.

As a novelist, I suppose I can say that I'm highly articulate. But I know, as a person, in other ways, I'm not always articulate. I think we are all, from time to time, inarticulate, at some level, about some things.

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.

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

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 think what I like to do is to begin with the ordinary and find the extraordinary in it.