The most prosaic of us betray a belief in the inward life every time we talk about 'my body' rather than 'I.

When we let ourselves respond to poetry, to music, to pictures, we are clearing a space where new stories can root, in effect we are clearing a space for new stories about ourselves.

Slightest accidents open up new worlds.

I fell into the books, and left myself there for safekeeping.

There are only three possible endings -aren't there? - to any story: revenge, tragedy or forgiveness. That's it. All stories end like that.

Even death after a long illness is without warning. The moment you had prepared for so carefully took you by storm. The troops broke through the window and snatched the body and the body is gone. ... Death reduces us to the baffled logic of a small child. If yesterday why not today?

As a writer, if you're prepared to work from your own wound, you're allowing people into the most vulnerable parts of yourself.