A fine book, in the perfect setting, when there's all the time in the world to read it: Life holds greater joys, but none come to mind just now.
A life spent largely among books, and in the exercise of a literary profession, has very obvious drawbacks, as a subject-matter, when one comes to write about it.
I had a complicated life until I was 25. I was born in Bristol and was brought up by my mum and my stepfather in Edinburgh. He introduced me to books.
About my books, that's all that I think the public has, in its normal way, to know. My private life is, by definition, private.
I wanted all my life to give my world into other arts - books, plays, movies - but I didn't want to sell out.
I have known Farley Mowat all of my life, from reading his books as a child to becoming a close friend of his over the last three decades.
Every time I write a book, I've probably taken five years off my life.
Horror can be contained within a book, given form and meaning. But in life, horror has no more form than it does meaning. Horror just is.
If books were Persian carpets, one would not look only at the outer side. because it is the stitch that makes a carpet wear, gives it its life and bloom.
What I would do is when I was younger I would draw in a sketch book something that happened in my life and then write a little something on the side about what happened or what the story.
I've never turned into a bee - I've never been chased by a mummy or met a ghost. But many of the ideas in my books are suggested by real life.
I write about myself with the same pencil and in the same exercise book as about him. It is no longer I, but another whose life is just beginning.
While books provided me with some escape from the mental and physical horrors of my early life, they were unreliable. Many times the protagonists suffered terribly and then died at the end.
What I've always tried to find in my books are points at which the private lives of the characters, and also my own, intersect with the public life of the culture.
There are books on our shelves we haven't read and doubtless never will, that each of us has probably put to one side in the belief that we will read them later on, perhaps even in another life.
My books are about ordinary people placed in extraordinary situations who are able to draw upon their inner reserves to challenge the status-quo in life and navigate compelling human relationships.
My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.
A lot of things have been thrown at me in life, and I've got through it all without a rule book, taking it one day at a time.
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.
Right now I'm singing along to books on tape. I typically pop in something like Stephen King's 'The Stand,' and I love singing along to that kind of stuff.
I got a call on a Sunday. 'Do you want to do 'The Godfather?' I thought they were kidding me, right? I said, 'Yes, of course, I love that book' - which I had never read.
