If I Am Feeling Broken, I Can

A Novel Should Be A Book Of Questions, Not A Book Of Answers.

When People Begin To Talk About "our Island Story" My Hackles Rise. It Is Deluded And Conservative.

Though I Have Never Thought Of Myself As A Book Collector, There Are Shelves In Our House Browsed So Often, On So Many Rainy Winter Nights, That The Contents Have Seeped Into Me As If By Osmosis.

If I Am Feeling Broken, I Can Pick Up One Of [ivy Compton-burnett] Books And The Next Morning I Can Write Again. It Puts My Mechanism Back.

I Once Stole A Book. It Was Really Just The Once, And At The Time I Called It Borrowing. It Was 1970, And The Book, I Could See By Its Lack Of Date Stamps, Had Been Lying Unappreciated On The Shelves Of My Convent School Library Since Its Publication In 1945.