What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.

In my mind's eye, Shakespeare is a huge, hot sea-beast, with fire in his veins and ice on his claws and inscrutable eyes, who looks like an inchoate hump under the encrustations of live barnacle-commentaries, limpets and trailing weeds.

Where would we be without inhibitions? They're quite useful things when you look at some of the things humans do if they lose them.

I watch a lot of sport on television. I only watch certain sports, and I only watch them live - I don't think I've ever been able to watch a replay of a match or game of which the result was already decided. I feel bound to cheat and look up what can be looked up.

It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.

There is a certain aesthetic pleasure in trying to imagine the unimaginable and failing, if you are a reader.