He Came To This Country Like A

When I Write My Novels I Don't Really Have A Huge Plan Beforehand; I Don't Have The Whole Plot And Architecture, So The Story Is Sort Of Discovered As I Write It.

The One Of The Great Sadnesses Of Any Life Is Knowing What You Know Now And Then Remembering What You Did Not Know Then.

As A Writer, One Is Busy With Archaeology.

We Die Containing A Richness Of Lovers And Tribes, Tastes We Have Swallowed, Bodies We Have Plunged Into And Swum Up As If Rivers Of Wisdom, Characters We Have Climbed Into As If Trees, Fears We Have Hidden In As If Caves. I Wish For All This To Be Marked On By Body When I Am Dead. I Believe In Such Cartography - To Be Marked By Nature, Not Just To Label Ourselves On A Map Like The Names Of Rich Men And Women On Buildings. We Are Communal Histories, Communal Books. We Are Not Owned Or Monogamous In Our Taste Or Experience.

Between The Kitchen And The Destroyed Chapel A Door Led Into An Oval-shaped Library. The Space Inside Seemed Safe Except For A Large Hole At Portrait Level In The Far Wall, Caused By Mortar-shell Attack On The Villa Two Months Earlier. The Rest Of The Room Had Adapted Itself To This Wound, Accepting The Habits Of Weather, Evening Stars, The Sound Of Birds.