Being alone in our present society raises an important question about identity and well-being.

Ian Watson did an almost full novel length treatment which I've never seen and when he finished it Stanley said to him. I need somebody to smear this with vaginal jelly, and I have to say when I first heard this that I was rather shocked, because he was quite gentlemanly.

It is not simply that we share with each other a common humanity, but that individually we have no humanity without each other.

Of course we also live in a world of great beauty, sacrificial and passionate love, tenderness, prosperity, courage and joy. But quite a lot of all that seems to happen regardless of the paradigm and the high thoughts of philosophy. It has always happened. It is precisely because it has always happened that we go on wrestling with these issues in the hope that it can happen more often and for more people.

My father taught me to be independent and cocky and free thinking, but he could not stand it if I disagreed with him.

Being alone in our present society raises an important question about identity and well-being.

Gardening gave me a way to work with silence; not "in silence" but "with silence" - it was a silent creativity.