Words are the part of silence that can be spoken.

It doesn't have to be like that but mostly it is.

Thinking about time is to acknowledge two contradictory certainties: that our outward lives are governed by the seasons and the clock; that our inward lives are governed by something much less regular-an imaginative impulse cutting through the dictates of daily time, and leaving us free to ignore the boundaries of here and now and pass like lightning along the coil of pure time, that is, the circle of the universe and whatever it does or does not contain.

I drove to Oxford with my van full of petrol and tin cans, as I didn't know there were service stations on the motorway. I pulled up on the hard shoulder and got my cans out. Then I filled up and set off again. That's how naive I was - so much not a cosmopolitan girl.

Everything in writing begins with language. Language begins with listening.

I'm always nervous about going home, just as I am nervous about rereading books that have meant a lot to me.

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