My first collection of poems was published by Bloodaxe Books, which was then a very new imprint.

Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away.

A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.

The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes.

i wish i was away in Ingo far across the briny sea sailing over deepest waters where neither care nore worry trouble me

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.

It is a violation which has obsessed the tyrants of the twentieth century. They do not want simply to kill their opponents, but to liquidate them, to deny that they have ever existed.

However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

Whether you like it or not, your life is passing away.

frustration, complication and misery are available in abundance, but so is God's grace.

Every organism requires an environment of friends, partly to shield it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its wants.

Sometimes you just can't hear yourself. Maybe ears are too close to the mouth.

What you fail to understand is the power of hate. It can fill the heart as surely as love can.

Whenever the human race assembles to a number exceeding four, it cannot stand free speech.

Robert A. Heinlein has been an idol to me for more than 20 years. He can do no wrong, no matter how much he loves wars and hates pacifists.

Critics are notoriously liberal with their use of the term 'genius'.

Shoot first, ask questions last. That's how these so called gangsta's last.

I have supped full with horrors.