There is certainly a satisfaction and dignity to be gained in coming to terms with the mistakes one has made in the course of one’s life

There's still a part of me that thinks I have to write a really good novel. I'm not trying to say I'm not happy with the novels I've written in the past. But it always feels to me like there's another one that I have to write that will really say what I want to say, and really paint this world that I can see hazily in my head.

The evening's the best part of the day. You've done your day's work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.

I've always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.

I wouldn't want to try to adapt something of my own. It would be like going back to school and doing all my exams again.

A man who aspires to rise above the mediocre, to be something more than the ordinary, surely deserves admiration, even if he fails and loses a fortune on account of his ambitions (...) if one has failed only where others have not had the courage or will to try, there is consolation - indeed, deep satisfaction - to be gained from his observation when looking back over one's life. #Page no.134

But I really wanted to find it for you. And when it looked in the end like it wasn't going to turn up, I just said to myself, one day I'll go to Norfolk and I'll find it there for her.' 'The lost corner of England,' I said.