I was very fierce and very driven at eighteen. But my basic philosophy I think has stayed the same, I'm still an atheist, I still believe strongly in the power of free will (despite the mysticism in my prose). I don't believe in the notion of a pre-ordained destiny, and I think because of the sudden death of my father at sixteen I learnt then that it is essential to live life to the fullest as it could be snatched away at any second.

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.

This may be the very nature of love, a passion as fickle as the sea, full of certainty when the object of desire is absent, yet dubious when confronted again with the lover's presence.

The worst enemy is one whose doctrines are founded in hate and are thus beyond debate.

Memory is a great deceiver: it embroiders until naught is left but the glory and the pleasure.

To be desired by those who are themselves highly desirable is in itself an aphrodisiac.

Humiliation scars deeper than the lash.