Writing, and especially writing a novel, where you get to sit in a room by yourself with either a pen and a paper or a computer for a couple of years, is a very solitary occupation. You can read sales figures - a hundred thousand books sold, half a million books sold - but they are just numbers.

The future had suddenly become unknowable: anything could happen: the train of my life had jumped the rails and headed off across the fields and coming down the lane with me, then.

The imagination is a muscle. If it is not exercised, it atrophies.

Even if your goose habitually lays golden eggs, it will still be cooked.

But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?

Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

As sure as water's wet and days are long and a friend will always disappoint you in the end.