Writers feel that they can't afford to wait. They must do it now, and they are so clever, and there is so much competition. I'm quite happy to wait, and quite confident that the muses will cross the stream.

Wonder - the sensation of being whisked out of time and space...to be bathed in ... epiphanous delight.

I don't write quickly or a lot. Well actually I write quickly, but I don't have a store of things. I will wait for that erotic moment - like the one which struck me when someone said "have you ever heard of Kester Berwick?"

One of the unfortunate things about creative writing courses is that they make people impatient. People feel that they have prepared themselves and that they must now do it. In fact there are positive incentives for doing so - universities are offering degrees for writing novels.

I've always had a fascination for the stage which has to do with transfiguration. One moment you are John Smith from East Brighton riding in your cart, and the next moment you are in a completely different world.

It is terribly important to maintain a national identity in a way that it probably wasn't before.

I am coming from an older school, and I feel that you must learn to wait. There is that essay which was about the great notion of sitting on the mountain and waiting for the muses to cross the stream, and give you the symbols that would allow you to create. The word wait seems to me to be terribly important.