Everything flows from God, but we are limited by imposing our human perceptions upon him. Man designs God according to his own image and the image man has of himself is flawed.

Believe, my child. Faith is the food of survival.

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

Humiliation scars deeper than the lash.

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!

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.

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.