I hate the word lesbian; it tells you nothing; its only purpose is to inflame.

The world is surely wide enough to walk without fear.

I think people deceive themselves about themselves, particularly as they get older.

Not much touches us, but we long to be touched. We lie awake at night willing the darkness to part and show us a vision.

It is important not to force a character into something. Fiction writers can be too controlling - usually that's a terror of our own unconscious processes.

In a vacuum all photons travel at the same speed. They slow down when travelling through air or water or glass. Photons of different energies are slowed down at different rates. If Tolstoy had known this, would he have recognised the terrible untruth at the beginning of Anna Karenina? 'All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own particular way.' In fact it's the other way around. Happiness is a specific. Misery is a generalisation. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.

In a world where meaning is often absent or imposed, reading offers a dialogue with ourselves, with society, with history, and with the dead.