Novels, in my experience, are slow in coming, and once I've begun them I know I have years rather than months of work ahead of me.

The real art is not to come up with extraordinary clever words but to make ordinary simple words do extraordinary things. To use the language that we all use and to make amazing things occur.

Happiness quells thought. And work quells thought.

Literature is the voice of the human heart.

People die when curiosity goes.

I can do hieroglyphics in the margin. There are days when I really enjoy the flow of ink. I mean, nice pen, ink straight on to the page.

What we wish upon the future is very often the image of some lost, imagined past.

When anything goes digital, let alone something as immaterial as a book, there is a tendency to see it as just in the air to be taken, and to lose the sense that somebody once made it.

I like the world we've got. If there is anything special and magical, I have to find it in the ordinary stuff.

Possibly he knew, as he wrote this, that he was mad - because inside every madman sits a little sane man saying 'You're mad, you're mad.'

I share my name with an aerobatic bird that can whiz across a whole summer sky in seconds. A swift is so equipped for speed that it can scarcely cope with being stationary.

Who we are now is all that really matters.

Faith is when you choose to trust the Lord, even when there's a lot at stake.

Globalisation makes it clear that social responsibility is required not only of governments, but of companies and individuals. All sources must interact in order to reach the MDGs.

He speaks in your voice, American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful.

But she’d managed to find her way into our reality, perhaps because she had an important mission here, perhaps because she was here to save us from what people call the monotony of life.

What is and what is not create each other.

Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.

Life is all about making choices and I'm very happy with mine. I have had a wonderful time raising four children and I've also been lucky to have the support of a wonderful husband.

We need to welcome the experimental creativity that is always searching out new ways of singing the Gospel, and banish the fear that grips us when familiar music passes away.

Friendship is not a thing I have ever experienced. Not as a child, and not as I am now.