I Have A Healthy Appetite For Solitude.

I Write As Someone Who Has No More Time For Repressive Islam Than He Does For Repressive Christianity Or Judaism, But At Least Look At The Face In The Hijab - And Try To Imagine The One Beneath The Niqab - Before You Depersonalise Its Wearer.

When Anyone Starts Out To Do Something Creative - Especially If It Seems A Little Unusual - They Seek Approval, Often From Those Least Inclined To Give It. But A Creative Life Cannot Be Sustained By Approval, Any More Than It Can Be Destroyed By Criticism - You Learn This As You Go On.

The Novelist, Quite Rightly, Fears The Psychoanalyst As Both An Enemy And A Usurper.

A Very Beautiful Young Woman Once Asked Me To Sign Her Breasts. That Was Back When I Was A Hip Young Thing - It's Been All Downhill Since Then.

Here We Meet, On The Page, Naked And Unadorned: Shorn Of Class, Race, Gender, Sexual Identity, Age And Nationality.