I don't think writers choose the genre, the genre chooses us. I wrote out of the wish to create order out of disorder, the liking of a pattern.

For me, the dead remain dead. If I couldn't believe that, I don't think I could go on living.

We English are good at forgiving our enemies; it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.

Books of quotations ... afford me one of the most undemanding but satisfying forms of reading pleasure.

What was so terrible about grief was not grief itself, but that one got over it.

I wonder if childhood is ever really happy. Just as well, perhaps. To be blissfully happy so young would leave one always seeking to recapture the unobtainable. Like those people who were always happiest at school or university. Always going back. No reunion ever missed. It always seemed to me rather pathetic.

Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up.