Ice burns, and it is hard to the warm-skinned to distinguish one sensation, fire, from the other, frost..

Human beings love stories because they safely show us beginnings, middles and ends..

Once upon a time, when men and women hurtled through the air on metal wings, when they wore webbed feet and walked on the bottom of the sea, learning….

There is a certain aesthetic pleasure in trying to imagine the unimaginable and failing, if you are a reader..

Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops. We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by..

Young girls are sad. They like to be; it makes them feel strong..

The minds of stone lovers had colonised stones as lichens clung to them with golden or grey-green florid stains. The human world of stones is caught ….

I don't like gurus. I don't like people who ask you to follow or believe. I like people who ask you to think independently..

In my mind's eye Shakespeare is a huge, hot sea-beast, with fire in his veins and ice on his claws and inscrutable eyes, who looks like an inchoate h….

Harm can come about without will or action. But will and action can avert harm..

I watch a lot of sport on television. I only watch certain sports, and I only watch them live - I don't think I've ever been able to watch a replay o….

One does not remember the winners. One remains haunted by the losers..

I know that part of the reason I read Tolkien when I'm ill is that there is an almost total absence of sexuality in his world, which is restful..

I like feeling my way into different minds and experiences. It comes naturally and always has..

You can understand a lot about yourself by working out which fairytale you use to present your world to yourself in..

I grew up with that completely fictive idea of motherhood, where the mother never strayed from the kitchen. All the women in my books are very afraid….

For my true thoughts have spent more time in your company than in anyone else's, these last two or three months, and where my thoughts are, there am ….

What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude..

…my Solitude is my Treasure, the best thing I have..

Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilisers..

Our days weave together the simple pleasures of daily life, which we should never take for granted, and the higher pleasures of Art and Thought which….