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

A novel should be a book of questions, not a book of answers.

When people begin to talk about "our island story" my hackles rise. It is deluded and conservative.

When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.

It follows that if you are not a mother you are not a grandmother. Your life has become unpunctuated, whereas the lives of other women around you have these distinct phases.

I was the subject of an experiment in love. I lived my life under her gaze, undergoing certain trials for her so that she would not have to undergo them for herself. But, how are our certainties forged, except by the sweat and tears of other people? If your parents don't teach you how to live; you learn it from books; and clever people watch you learn from your mistakes.

I think I would have been a reasonably good lawyer. I have a faculty for making sense of mountains of information.