There are so many characters whizzing around inside my head, it's like Looney Tunes. But as soon as I've finished writing about them, I completely forget who they are.

Every book for me is a chapter in the long book which will finally be closed on the day of my death.

A triptych in which the presiding deities are Mother, England and Me.

Familial love can find an echo in our own hearts just as it did in that of Charles Dickens.

It is strange, is it not, how a person can adore one's soul so much that they adore one's body also?

The endless chatter of this journey had wearied me.

I detest self-regard. If my work has taught me anything, it is that self-aggrandisement is completely unhistorical.