I've given up reading the papers. Since the world's so obviously bent on killing itself, I decided months ago to sit back and let it.

Respect your characters, even the ­minor ones. In art, as in life, everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may intersect only slightly with your protagonist's.

Your heart-as you call it-and hers are alike, after all: they are like mine, like everyone's. They resemble nothing so much as those meters you will find on gas-pipes: they only perk up and start pumping when you drop coins in.

I wouldnt mind being a fly on the wall in a few Victorian parlours.

All unwillingly I opened my eyes - then I opened them wider, and lifted my head. The heat, my weariness, were quite forgotten. Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this there was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.

With every step I took away from her, the movement at my heart and between my legs grew more defined: I felt like a ventriloquist, locking his protesting dolls in to a trunk.

All I can do is write about whatever grabs me.