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!

I think there's something about studying a book which will kill it if you're not careful.

I got married young, far too young, but it is fine. We are still married 48 years later. I got married at 19.

It's good to focus on the universal suffering that goes on in any war. Whatever the right and wrongs of the war, there is always universal suffering.

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.

A lot of children, like I did, move away from words because of the fear - which is something you have to take out of education: the fear of worrying about what marks you'll get, detention, worrying about letting people down, your parents, teachers.

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.