Because I'm not writing all the time (thank goodness), my mind is sometimes pleasantly blank.

the translator, a lonely sort of acrobat, becomes confused in a labyrinth of paradox, or climbs a pyramid of dependent clauses and has to invent a way down from it in his own language.

I don't believe, in the end, that there is any such thing as no style. Even a very neutral, plain style, one that doesn't use colloquialisms, lyrical flourishes, heavy supplies of metaphor, etc., is a style, and it becomes a writer's characteristic style just as much as a thicker, richer deployment of idiom and vocabulary.

If I was writing about an academic or a more difficult person, I would use the Latinate vocabulary more, but I do think Anglo-saxon is the language of emotion.

I can talk for a long time only when it's about something boring.

I find teaching - I like it, but I find just walking into the classroom and facing the students very difficult.

Work hard and meticulously. When in trouble, look closely at a text that is a good example of what you're trying to do. And be patient.