I have consistently loved books that I’ve read when I’ve been sick in bed.
It’s a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids.
I heard voices outside our front door – a woman’s, bright as polished brass, and a man’s, low and dark like the wood of the table I was working on. They were the kind of voices we heard rarely in our house. I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur.
He spoke her name as though he held cinnamon in his mouth.
You’re so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.
It’s those little daily incidents of life that are dramatic, and if you put a frame around it, suddenly they become much bigger and much more important than you ever imagined.
The sign of a masterpiece: A painting when there’s a lack of resolution.
I find that when I come out of the library I’m in what I call the library bliss of being totally taken away from the distractions of life.
Don’t write about what you know – write about what you’re interested in. Don’t write about yourself – you aren’t as interesting as you think.
Normally book ideas come to me in a moment.
I try to write 1,000 words a day – about three pages. When I reach 1,000 words I feel good. Less than that: a failure. More than that: tired.
I didn’t move. I’ve learned from years of experience that dogs and falcons and ladies come back to you if you stay where you are.
That’s how fossil hunting is: It takes over, like a hunger, and nothing else matters but what you find. And even when you find it, you still start looking again the next minute, because there might be something even better waiting.
Although I always said that I wanted to be a writer from childhood, I hadn’t actually done much about it until I came to London.
Jane Austen easily used half a page describing someone else’s eyes; she would not appreciate summarizing her reading tastes in ten titles.
As I get older, I use less jewelry – necklace or earrings each morning, not both; my clothes are getting more basic – fewer colours and simpler cuts; and my make-up is stripped back to basics.