It is important for me to discover the ideal title, for without this title the story or novel isn't quite in focus.

Early publication can be a dubious blessing: we all know writers who would give anything not to have published their first book, and go about trying to buy up all existing copies.

It must happen to everyone. The last time you make love, you can't know it will be the last.

In love there are two things - bodies and words.

Each genre exerts a considerable spell, as a kind of "form" to be filled, as a Shakespearean sonnet is filled.

I don't believe in predestination - except for genetic predilections.

We come away from the tragedies of [William] Shakespeare with a profound sense of having encountered reality in its most pristine form - yet the art-work is elaborately artificial, the very genre of tragedy in poetry an anti-naturalist perspective.