As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short.

It's what I'll be singing in the morning. It won't be God Save the Ruddy King or All Things bleeding Bright and Beautiful. It'll be Orange and Lemons for Big Joe, for all of us.

This one isn’t just any old horse. There’s a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be? I tell you, my friend, there’s divinity in a horse, and specially in a horse like this. God got it right the day he created them. And to find a horse like this in the middle of this filthy abomination of a war, is for me like finding a butterfly on a dung heap. We don’t belong in the same universe as a creature like this.

For me,the greater part of writing is daydreaming, dreaming the dream of my story until it hatches out-the writing down of it I always find hard.But I love finishing it,then holding the book in my hand and sharing my dream with my readers.

If it is possible to be happy in the middle of a nightmare, then Topthorn and I were happy that summer.

Blind terror drove me on, with my flying stirrups whipping me into a frenzy. With no rider to carry I reached the kneeling riflemen first and they scattered as I came upon them.

Remember to write for yourself, not for a market and give yourself time to develop your own style, your own voice. It takes a lifetime. Enjoy it!