I like poetry when I don't quite understand why I like it. Poetry isn't just a question of wrapping something up and giving it to someone else to unwrap. It just doesn't work like that.

As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I have thrown away five completed novels, and that's a gruesome enough figure. But not necessarily a waste of effort.

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.

Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing.

I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier.

How pleased we are to have our eyes opened but how easily we close them again.

You love someone, you've got to let something go.