[On writing biography:] If you wish to see a person you must not start by seeing through him.

Just as, in travel, one may miss seeing the sunset because one cannot find the ticket-office or is afraid of missing the train, so in even the closest human relationships a vast amount of time and of affection is drained away in minor misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and failures in consideration or understanding.

I believe, not theoretically, but from direct personal experience, that very few of the things that happen to us are purposeless or accidental (and this includes suffering and grief - even that of others), and that sometimes one catches a glimpse of the link between these happenings. I believe - even when I am myself blind and deaf, or even indifferent - in the existence of a mystery.

I write because, exacting as it may be to do so, it is still more difficult to refrain, and because - however conscious of one's limitations one may be - there is always at the back of one's mind an irrational hope that this next book will be different: it will be the rounded achievement, the complete fulfilment. It never has been: yet I am still writing.

We are being governed by the dregs of the nation - and their brutality is so capricious that no one can feel certain that he will be safe tomorrow.

I do not think that one is likely to write a good biography unless one feels some sympathy with its subject.

Behind each biography there should always be a rich treasury of unformulated knowledge, a tapestry that has not been unrolled.