I have deliberately left Sylvester and Julia's appearances to the reader's imagination.

They may turn out to be a great disappointment, or perhaps they may be full of enchanting surprises.

People try much less hard to make a marriage work than they used to fifty years ago. Divorce is easier.

A lot of people stop short. They don't actually die but they say, 'Right I'm old, and I'm going to retire,' and then they dwindle into nothing. They go off to Florida and become jolly boring.

I have a garden, and I'm passionately interested in young people.

In my eighties, my best friends are in their fifties, and I have many friends at university. It keeps one young, and up with the vocabulary. That's terribly important, especially for a writer.

I have deliberately left Sylvester and Julia's appearances to the reader's imagination.