There are many nations that have perfected a particular room. You know, you have the French drawing-room, the Austrian ball room, the German dining room, and I think the library is a room the English get right.

In my defence I can only say that her past, too, like mine, like everyone's in fact, was a locked box. Occasionally we allow people a peep, but generally only at the top level. The darker streams of our memories we negotiate alone.

Most of the soap operas always use the Christmas special to kill huge quantities of their characters. So they have trams coming off their rails, or cars slamming into each other or burning buildings. It's a general clean-out.

Harsh reality is always better than false hope.

To me, all success is a delightful surprise, since one can absolutely never predict it.

I'm seen as a chronicler of the class system, which I don't think is unfair.

It's the gloomy things that need our help, if everything in the garden is sunny, why meddle?