To kiss well one must kiss solely. No groping hands or stammering hearts. The lips and the lips alone are the pleasure. Passion is sweeter split strand by strand. Divided and re-divided like mercury then gathered up only at the last moment.
I need to be able to hear what is being said to me by the voices I create. Just on the other side of creativity is the nuthouse – and I often notice people looking at me strangely when I am talking out loud, but there is no other way.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a hero without a cause. People like that just make trouble so that they can solve it.
History is not a suicide note – it is a record of our survival.
A character has a distinctive voice – you should be able to hear them in your head and conduct a conversation with them while you’re out walking. If the answers surprise you, you know it’s the character speaking and not you.
Every believer is an anarchist at heart. True believers would rather see governments topple and history rewritten than scuff the cover of their faith.
The Bible writers didn’t care that they were bunching together sequences some of which were historical, some preposterous, and some downright manipulative. Faithful recording was not their business; faith was.
Yes, the past is another country, but one that we can visit, and once there we can bring back the things we need.
I don’t see myself as some kind of lone figure standing out there and doing my work in solitary splendour, but as part of the human condition and part of the continuum of writers.
I have found that I am not a space where people want to live, at least not without decorating first.
Part fact part fiction is what life is. And it is always a cover story. I wrote my way out.
I fell into the books, and left myself there for safekeeping.
I think of myself in a continuum as a woman. Two hundred years ago, it would have been very difficult for me to write at all.
I walked out to brood on this life of ours, which seems from birth to death to be a steady loss, disguised by sudden gains and happiness, which persuade us of good fortune, when all the while the glass is emptying.
I want to get to the end and feel that I’ve done all I could, given the limitations and given the opportunities.
I don’t know which is worse: to be wrongfully accused or mistakenly understood.
How easy it is to destroy the past and how difficult to forget it.
Passion is for holidays, not homecoming.
I care about doing the work as best as I can do, and that it should go on reaching people. It’s not about fame and it’s not about me. It’s about creating something that might allow someone else to create something.
Poetry is easier to learn than prose. Once you have learned it you can use it as a light and a laser. It shows up your true situation and it helps you cut through it.