I don't really believe in stories, only in the people who tell them.

Hope is like one of those orchids that grows around toxic waste: lovely in itself - and an assertion, if you like, of indefatigable good - but a sure sign that something nasty lies underneath.

As writers go, I have a skin of average thickness. I am pleased by a good review, disappointed by a bad. None of it penetrates far enough to influence the thing I write next.

That's writing for you: when you make space for passion, it doesn't turn up.

How can there be so many mothers in the world but so little sense of what it might be to become one?

The creativity of childhood was often surrendered amid feelings of unworthiness. So the idea that ­others are demanding to be given it back - to be "taught" - is disturbing.

Childhood, after all, is not an ending, but rather a state full of potent curiosity.

Even if they knew the truth of their own feelings, most mothers would be socially and emotionally incapable of revealing it.

Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

Hope is one of those no-win-no-fee things, and although it needs some encouragement to survive, its existence doesn't necessarily prove anything.

People are least aware of others when demonstrating their own power over them.

Intelligence, knowledge or experience are important and might get you a job, but strong communication skills are what will get you promoted.

I can do what I need to do. I can get where I want to go, no matter how hard it is.

I guess I've shot about 40,000 negatives and of these I have about 800 pictures I like.

I live an idle burden to the ground.

Every kind of book I've written has been written in a different way. There has not been any set time for writing, any set way, I haven't re-invented the process every time but I almost have.

Don't let negativity affect your vision. People say harsh things, but don't let them affect you.

Ultimately Rex Tillerson will reflect [Donald] Trump's policy towards Russia, which will be friendly up right up to the point of time it isn't.

Human consciousness is too obscure a mystery to itself for us to script our own lives.

Resolutions aren't self-executing. Somebody has to provide the soldiers, take the risks, risk their blood and their treasure to go out and implement such a resolution.

Ridicule often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.