I was very moved to see that the name of the boat was Hamlet - an imaginary character becomes so important to people, we think about them so much that we name a ship after them. The imaginary lives on in the real.

I feel now, in my impending old age, very lucky. I just can't tell you how lucky I feel, that I've managed to first of all, stay alive this long, in reasonably good health, and that I've been able to do what I want to do.

Chance is an element of life. What I try to do is study what I call the mechanics of reality as carefully as I can.

You have to really have a taste for being alone to be a writer.

Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense, a writer has no life of his own. Even when he’s there, he’s not really there.

All children are love children, he said, but only the best ones are ever called that.

I see myself as anybody, as everybody; I'm not just telling the story of my life to give the reader a picture of who I am.