Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.

I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.

Life has a funny way of becoming ordinary as soon as it can.

Suffering is too strong a word, but writing is serious work. I pull the stuff up from me - it's not as if it's a pleasure.

I wrote every day between the ages of 12 and 20 when I stopped because I went to Barcelona, where life was too exciting to write.

I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point.

If you have to read to cheer yourself up, read biographies of writers who went insane.

I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don't have a strong visual imagination.

She was lonely without Blunt, but she was lonelier at the idea that the world went on as though she had not loved him.

If you think happiness is a rare bird you won't see much of it.

It would be so great to have someone my own age to talk to, even if it was just about books.

That’s kind of creepy,

My exposure to visual art all my life was intensive.

Donald Trump seems to think it is within his rights to trample the First Amendment, to disdain the press, to punish protesters or flag-burners, to ban ethnic categories of immigrants, and so on.

One job is to be an actor, the other job is to be a spectator.

In order to do well, missionary work has to be totally positive.

Of course we live in a world where we have to make money to eat so that's always nice to be able to sing and make money but to do something I love and to be able to eat from...it's great.

If all the world be worth thy winning. / Think, oh think it worth enjoying: / Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee, / Take the good the gods provide thee.

Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble.