So many years of preparation, for what was called adult life: was it for this?

As a writer, you owe it to yourself not to get stuck in a rut of looking at the world in a certain way.

When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you are commissioned to do.

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.

I've got so many ideas, and sometimes the more exhausted my body gets, the more active my mind gets.

My concern is less the monarchy as such than the attempt of a fading colonial power to hang onto grandeur.

So many years of preparation, for what was called adult life: was it for this?