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

Mythology is much better stuff than history. It has form; logic; a message.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

But who knows their own child? You know bits - certain predictable reactions, a handful of familiar qualities. The rest is impenetrable. And quite right too. You give birth to them. You do not design them.

You learn a lot, writing fiction.

I've always been fascinated by the operation of memory - the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence.

the days of our lives vanish utterly, more insubstantial than if they had been invented. Fiction can seem more enduring than reality.