Harsh reality is always better than false hope.

My childhood was a happy one, spent in a tall house in South Kensington and later in East Sussex, but my early and mid teens were less successful.

We live a life that is often spent in crowds - parties, festivals and first nights - so it's nice to avoid them.

Life is a game in which the player must appear ridiculous.

Lust, that state commonly known as 'being in love,' is a kind of madness. It is a distortion of reality so remarkable that it should, by rights, enable most of us to understand the other forms of lunacy with the sympathy of fellow-sufferers. But, paradoxically, mad and suffering as one is, and the heat of the flame, few of us are glad as we feel that passion slip away No, while most people have been at their unhappiest when in love, it is nevertheless the state the human being yearns for above all.

I envy people who can think, 'No, I'm not going to work today' when they have a huge pile of deadlines stacking up.

I don't think I'm an unkind person, I don't think my books are unkind, and I don't think my readers are unkind.