As A Londoner I Was Able To

I Wanted To Be A Poet When I Was 20; I Had No Interest In Fiction Or Biography And Precious Little Interest In History, But Those Three Elements In My Life Have Become The Most Important.

Oh, I Just Tend To Believe In Things When I'm Writing Them. For Instance, When I Was Writing 'doctor Dee,' I Believed In Magic. And When I Wrote 'hawksmoor' I Believed In Psychic Geography. But As Soon As I Type The Last Full Stop, I'm Back To Being A Complete Blank Again.

My Great Fear Has Always Been Complete And Utter Failure. Hence, You See, All The Dispossessed People In My Fiction, And Why I Try To Earn As Much Money As I Can. It's A Defense. I Don't Enjoy It Or Do Anything With It.

And When I Was Young, Did I Ever Tell You, I Always Wanted To Get Inside A Book And Never Come Out Again? I Loved Reading So Much I Wanted To Be A Part Of It, And There Were Some Books I Could Have Stayed In For Ever.

The 16th-century Theatre Witnessed The Particularly English Manifestation Of 'the History Play.' There Can Be No Doubt That Shakespeare's Presentations Of 'henry V' And 'richard Iii' Have Been Incalculably More Influential Than Any More Sober Historical Study.