I Don't Think It Is Given To

I Think That All Writers Feel Alienated. ... I Know That I Do. ... I Still Feel, As I Think Most Creative People Do, Absolutely Isolated.

Yet It's Not For Want Of Future That I'm Here, He Thought. It's For Want Of A Present.

When You're My Age, You Have The Feeling Sometimes That You're Seeing The Show Come Round Again.

A Desk Is A Dangerous Place From Which To View The World.

I Think That Most Of My Books Are Part Of Some Process Of Self-education, Often About The Places I Go To. Most Of All, They Are About The Peculiar Tension Between Institutional Loyalty And Loyalty To Oneself; The Mystery Of Patriotism, For A Brit Of My Age And Generation, Where It Runs, How It Should Be Defined, What It's Worth And What A Corrupting Force It Can Be When Misapplied. All That Stuff Is Just In Me And It Comes Out In The Characters. I Don't Mean To Preach, But I Know I Do, And I'm A Very Flawed Person. It's Quite Ridiculous.