I Have Very Fond Memories Of Swimming

With English Literature, If You Do A Bit Of Shonky Spelling, No One Dies, But If You're Half-way Through A Maths Calculation And You Stick In An Extra Zero, Everything Just Crashes Into The Ravine.

I Think Most Writers Feel Like They're On The Outside Looking In Much Of The Time... All Of Us Feel, To A Certain Extent, Alienated From The Stuff Going On Around Us.

At 20, 25, 30, We Begin To Realise That The Possibilities Of Escape Are Getting Fewer. We Have Jobs, Children, Partners, Debts. This Is The Part Of Us To Which Literary Fiction Speaks.

One Person Looks Around And Sees A Universe Created By A God Who Watches Over Its Long Unfurling, Marking The Fall Of Sparrows And Listening To The Prayers Of His Finest Creation. Another Person Believes That Life, In All Its Baroque Complexity, Is A Chemical Aberration That Will Briefly Decorate The Surface Of A Ball Of Rock Spinning Somewhere Among A Billion Galaxies. And The Two Of Them Could Talk For Hours And Find No Great Difference Between One Another, For Neither Set Of Beliefs Make Us Kinder Or Wiser.

Most Adults, Unlike Most Children, Understand The Difference Between A Book That Will Hold Them Spellbound For A Rainy Sunday Afternoon And A Book That Will Put Them In Touch With A Part Of Themselves They Didn't Even Know Existed.