It's a curious, wanting thing.

Why do gentlemen's voices carry so clearly, when women's are so easily stifled?

I knew Id always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, Well, Id rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one.

She scissored the curls away, and - toms, grow easily sentimental over their haircuts, but I remember this sensation very vividly - it was not like she was cutting hair, it was as if I had a pair of wings beneath my shoulder-blades, that the flesh had all grown over, and she was slicing free.

Cut like crazy. Less is more. I've often read manuscripts - including my own - where I've got to the beginning of, say, chapter two and have thought: “This is where the novel should actually start.” A huge amount of information about character and backstory can be conveyed through small detail. The emotional attachment you feel to a scene or a chapter will fade as you move on to other stories. Be business-like about it.

I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded.

I do love the past but wouldnt want to live in it.