I hope that readers will tear through my books because they can't stop themselves - and then, maybe, read them again and find new things there.

A novel, in the end, is a container, a shape which you are trying to pour your story into.

Poets go through a very tough apprenticeship in the use of words.

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.

The poets whom I knew then were all men and all seemed dauntingly sure of themselves - although I am sure that really they were as uncertain as I was.

I can remember being in my pram: children stayed in their prams much longer then than they do now. A big bouncy pram with black covers and a hood with metal clips that could trap your fingers. I was looking up at my sister who was sitting on the pram seat, with her back to me.

As individuals, we are shaped by story from the time of birth; we are formed by what we are told by our parents, our teachers, our intimates.