It was too exactly as imagined to be true. But I felt as gladly and expectantly disorientated, as happily and alertly alone, as Alice in Wonderland.

Ask me to marry you." "Will you marry me?" "No.

Because a star explodes and a thousand worlds like ours die, we know this world is. That is the smile: that what might not be, is.

There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.

I do not plan my fiction any more than I normally plan woodland walks; I follow the path that seems most promising at any given point, not some itinerary decided before entry.

People knew less of each other, perhaps, but they felt more free of each other, and so were more individual. The entire world was not for them only a push or a switch away. Strangers were strange, and sometimes with an exciting, beautiful strangeness. It may be better for humanity that we should communicate more and more.

All novelists should live in two different worlds: a real one and an unreal one.