There's something rather wonderful about the fact that Oxford is a very small city that contains most of the cultural and metropolitan facilities you could want, in terms of bookshops, theatre, cinema, conversation. But it's near enough to London to get here in an hour, and it's near enough to huge open spaces without which I would go insane.

But in life you have to take lots of decisions and if you don't take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do. So it is good to have a reason why you hate some things and you like others.

Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.

I could invent another world. I'm not terribly keen on this one.

..and only sticks and stones can break my bones.

I was born too late for steam trains and a lazy eye meant I'd never be an astronaut.

I don't mean that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, On the contrary; novels can perform two functions and most perform only one.