Auntie Phyl's last months in the care home were extra pieces. Age is unnecessary. Some of us, like my mother, are fortunate enough to die swiftly and suddenly, in full possession of our faculties and our fate, but more and more of us will be condemned to linger, at the mercy of anxious or indifferent relatives, careless strangers, unwanted medical interventions, increasing debility, incontinence, memory loss. We live too long, but, like the sibyl hanging in her basket in the cave at Cumae, we find it hard to die.

You have to be careful what you imagine, because the act of imagining is the act of encouraging yourself to be a certain kind of person.

I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I'll be all right; I've got a few veg.

Nothing fails like failure

I need words and print... I need print like an addict. I could live without it, perhaps. But I hope I never have to try.

Scenery can be a violent stimulant.

The women are always vixens or monsters. They can't just be normal people in the book.