My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh.

One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.

The world is always in movement.

Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two.

There are two ways of talking. One is the easy way, where you talk lightly, and the other one is the considered way. The considered way is what I have put my name to.

I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.