The One Thing You Have To Do

Usually People Look At You When They're Talking To You. I Know That They're Working Out What I'm Thinking, But I Can't Tell What They're Thinking. It Is Like Being In A Room With A One-way Mirror In A Spy Film.

The One Thing You Have To Do If You Write A Book Is Put Yourself In Someone Else's Shoes. The Reader's Shoes. You've Got To Entertain Them.

There's Something Rather Wonderful About The Fact That Oxford Is A Very Small City That Contains Most Of The Cultural And Metropolitan Facilities You Could Want, In Terms Of Bookshops, Theatre, Cinema, Conversation. But It's Near Enough To London To Get Here In An Hour, And It's Near Enough To Huge Open Spaces Without Which I Would Go Insane.

All The Other Children At My School Are Stupid. Except I'm Not Meant To Call Them Stupid, Even Though This Is What They Are.

He Was Asking Too Many Questions And He Was Asking Them Too Quickly. They Were Stacking Up In My Head Like Loaves In The Factory Where Uncle Terry Works. The Factory Is A Bakery And He Operates The Slicing Machines. And Sometimes A Slicer Is Not Working Fast Enough But The Bread Keeps Coming And There Is A Blockage. I Sometimes Think Of My Mind As A Machine, But Not Always As A Bread-slicing Machine. It Makes It Easier To Explain To Other People What Is Going On Inside It.