I didn't want it to be a book that made pronouncements.

Wars are fought by children. Conceived by their mad demonic elders, and fought by boys.

People die, but money never does.

I have had to empty two family homes during the last few years - first, the house that had been my grandmothers since 1923, and then my own country home, which we had lived in for over twenty years.

It seems to me that everything that happens to us is a disconcerting mix of choice and contingency.

All I know for certain is that reading is of the most intense importance to me; if I were not able to read, to revisit old favorites and experiment with names new to me, I would be starved - probably too starved to go on writing myself.

Language tethers us to the world; without it we spin like atoms.