You Learn A Lot, Writing Fiction.

I Believe That The Experience Of Childhood Is Irretrievable. All That Remains, For Any Of Us, Is A Headful Of Brilliant Frozen Moments, Already Dangerously Distorted By The Wisdoms Of Maturity.

Getting To Know Someone Else Involves Curiosity About Where They Have Come From, Who They Are.

I Have Long Been Interested In Landscape History, And When Younger And More Robust I Used To Do Much Tramping Of The English Landscape In Search Of Ancient Field Systems, Drove Roads, Indications Of Prehistoric Settlement. Towns And Cities, Too, Which Always Retain The Ghost Of Their Earlier Incarnations Beneath Today's Concrete And Glass.

I Rather Like Getting Away From Fiction.

And In Another Year Everything Will Be Different Yet Again. It Is Always Like That, And Always Will Be; You Are Forever Standing On The Brink, In A Place Where You Cannot See Ahead; There Is Nothing Of Which To Be Certain Except What Lies Behind. This Should Be Terrifying, But Somehow It Is Not.