Children are knives, my mother once said. They don’t mean to, but they cut. And yet we cling to them, don’t we, we clasp them until the blood flows.

I've never been very good at leaving things behind. I tried, but I have always left fragments of myself there too, like seeds awaiting their chance to grow.

Everything comes home, my mother used to say; every word spoken, every shadow cast, every footprint in the sand. It can't be helped; it's part of what makes us who we are.

You don't write because someone sets assignments! You write because you need to write, or because you hope someone will listen or because writing will mend something broken inside you or bring something back to life.

Somehow the anticipation of pain can be even more troubling, more a misery than the pain itself.

I don't think I've ever had a mentor. The closest thing is my friend Christopher Fowler, another writer. Chris kept me sane for a long time before I made it.

I'm not fond of cities: the constant activity and swarms of people.