I am very happy in second-hand bookshops; would a gardener not be happy in a garden?

At New Year's he had given Anne a present of silver forks with handles of rock crystal. He hopes she will use them to eat with, not to stick in people.

If I am feeling broken, I can pick up one of [Ivy Compton-Burnett] books and the next morning I can write again. It puts my mechanism back.

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

I think if the monarchy were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't have a huge effect on the national mind-set.

Watching live actors onstage, in something that changes night by night, real people picking up cues from each other, it concentrates you on the process rather than the result.

[Margaret Thatcher] assumed somehow that this would get the woman voter and all those juvenile male voters who wanted a well-regulated household with a woman who knew what she should be doing.