Journalism encourages haste ... and haste is the enemy of art.

I realised something important: whatever is on the outside can be taken away at any time. Only what is inside you is safe.

I want to get to the end and feel that I've done all I could, given the limitations and given the opportunities.

It may be that you are settled in another place it may be that you are happy but the one who took your heart wields final power.

…I noticed a woman whose face was a sea voyage I had not the courage to attempt.

Even the most solid of things, and the most real, the best-loved and the well-known, are only hand shadows on the wall. Empty space and points of light.

I love the apparent quiet of reading a book. You sit there; you're not really moving. It looks very solitary. It looks very boring, but actually it's the most exciting place because it's going on for you, and you're in that relationship. In that sense, it's like being with a lover. Nobody else can intrude on that space. It's the two of you. It's your own world.