I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

It was not apathy. It was an intelligent disinterest in those things that could have no bearing on one's existence.

I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault.

I never know where I am going, though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does?

I like writing about women, weak and strong, pathetic and heroic. I like writing about men, ditto. And all the variants of men and women, beasts and demons.

If you run away from trouble, it always follows.' Rather my impression, too. Though that never stopped me trying.

The humble were the elect of God. Did not the priests teach so, in their gemmed, kingly robes, from their towering pulpits?