I’ve always thought you are what you are and you shouldn’t pretend to be anyone else. But Oliver used to correct me and explain that you are whoever it is you’re pretending to be.

I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.

But that’s one advantage of fiction, you can speed up time.

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can.

You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed.

I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not,except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions? And then there is the question on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage: whether we admit it or repress it,and how this affects our dealings with others.Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it;some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.