Great Writing Can Be Done In Biography,

I Often Wonder What Would Have Happened To Me If I Hadn't Made That Decision. I Suppose I Would Have Sunk. I Suppose I Would Have Found Some Kind Of Hole And Tried To Hide Or Pass. After All, We Make Ourselves According To The Ideas We Have Of Our Possibilities. I Would Have Hidden In My Hole And Been Crippled By My Sentimentality, Doing What I Was Doing, And Doing It Well, But Always Looking For The Wailing Wall. And I Would Never Have Seen The World As The Rich Place That It Is. You Wouldn't Have Seen Me Here In Africa, Doing What I Do.

I Really Wasn't Equipped To Be A Writer When I Left Oxford. But Then I Set Out To Learn. I've Always Had The Highest Regard For The Craft. I've Always Felt It Was Work.

My Grief Is That The Publishing World, The Book Writing World Is An Extraordinary Shoddy, Dirty, Dingy World.

Whenever I Have Had To Write Fiction, I've Always Had To Invent A Character Who Roughly Has My Background.

All Cultures Have Been Mingled Forever.