I don't know why women are so mad about flowers. Personally, they leave me cold. I prefer trees.

Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

Love is the only thing that keeps me sane.

Yes - I am usually overweight. I have had to be interested in diet because of being diabetic for 30 years and having kidney failure.

Now I know I am an intellectual. I saw Malcolm Muggeridge on the television last night, and I understood nearly every word. It all adds up. A bad home, poor diet, not liking punk. I think I will join the library and see what happens.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

I'm spectacularly disorganised. I wrote my latest book in seven different notebooks scattered throughout my house.