Death strips all men of dignity.

A man who denies his past is a man who truly denies himself a future, for he refuses to know himself, and to deny knowledge of oneself is to stumble through life as handicapped as the blind mute.

Starting a new novel is a little like starting a new relationship - you have to be prepared to commit for at least three years and put up with the domestic tedium as well as the emotional highs!

So many of man's actions appear to have no immediate consequence but, concealed, do their work until finally all catches up and forms a complex web of cause and effect.

The novelist is more a marathon runner than long-distance runner and the kind of courage it takes working in such isolation cannot be underestimated. I really respect my fellow writers on this front.

No, what Great Aunt Winifred was suffering from was the persecution every happily single woman suffers: the predictable social condemnation of her independence and childlessness. Dorothy reminded herself of what she'd learned during a university course on feminist history (with a strong Marxist slant): spinsters are a threat to patriarchy.

Information is the mortar that both builds and destroys empires.