Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, 'I am Mrs de Winter now!.

The thing I think about is that once you've done it, you then start to think about what you're going to do next. It's much easier to follow something….

I was an only child. I lost both my parents. By the time I was twenty I was bald. I'm homosexual. In the way of circumstances and background to trans….

A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot..

If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging..

But then books, as I'm sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action. Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decid….

One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them..

It's subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined..

Art comes out of art; it begins with imitation, often in the form of parody, and it's in the process of imitating the voice of others that one comes ….

Of course my standards are out of date! That's why they're called standards..

It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to w….

To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish..

The nearest my parents came to alcohol was at Holy Communion and they utterly overestimated its effects. However bad the weather, Dad never drove to ….

I write plays about things that I can't resolve in my mind. I try to root things out..

Memories are not shackles, Franklin, they are garlands..

An article on playwrights in the Daily Mail , listed according to Hard Left, Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should ….

Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never..

I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success, The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam's scheme of t….

I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life..

It [Cambridge] wasn't a holy grail in the sense that I'd never been to Cambridge. But then, when I did go, the contrast between Leeds, which was very….

Cloisters, ancient libraries ... I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone..