That's the interesting thing about writing. You can start late, you can be ignorant of things, and yet, if you work hard and pay attention you can do a good job of it.

I attempt all day, at work, not to think about what lies ahead, but this costs me so much effort that there is nothing left for my work. I handle telephone calls so badly that after a while the switchboard operator refuses to connect me. So I had better say to myself, Go ahead and polish the silverware beautifully, then lay it out ready on the sideboard and be done with it. Because I polish it in my mind all day long—this is what torments me (and doesn't clean the silver).

Part of my mind is working on how to end the thing while I'm going on. You need at least two brains to write.

When I'm trying a new form- trying to do something I'm not used to doing, which was true of the novel.

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.

But it is curious how you can see that an idea is absolutely true and correct and yet not believe it deeply enough to act on it.

Art is not in some far-off place.