The more you learn, the less you fear.

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art.

What is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. This may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible.

Writers of either gender ought to be able to do the opposite sex-that's one basic test of competence, after all.

But I’ve been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia, and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don’t get soggy at the memory of some childhood knickknack; nor do I want to deceive myself sentimentally about something that wasn’t even true at the time—love of the old school, and so on. But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions—and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives—then I plead guilty.

In 1980, I published my first novel, in the usual swirl of unjustified hope and justified anxiety.

I hate the way the English have of not being serious about being serious, I really hate it.