The joy of painting lies precisely in the challenge of memory and the challenge of translation from the lived experience to the two-dimensional or three-dimensional symbol.

I don't know anyone who actually likes the dark or night-time. I don't care how much they say it doesn't bother them. That's why we used to huddle in caves and light fires when the sun went down.

Unlike life, you've got more or less complete control over what's going on in your stories. That's not to say you can make characters do whatever you want them to - they usually have a life of their own if you've done your job properly.

As for goals, I don't set myself those anymore. I'm not one of these 'I must have achieved this and that by next year' kind of writers. I take things as they come and find that patience and persistence tend to win out in the end.

Photos represent primarily a seductive but deleterious short cut.

Sometimes I'll hear a phrase or a word and write it down in my little black notebook (a writer's best mate), then come back to it and work a plot around it.

Painting is a matter of finding the right balance between consoling and reassuring the eye and challenging and disturbing the eye.