I Think The Fundamental Apprehension Is That

You Know That Sickening Feeling Of Inadequacy And Over-exposure You Feel When You Look Upon Your Own Empurpled Prose? Relax Into The Awareness That This Ghastly Sensation Will Never, Ever Leave You, No Matter How Successful And Publicly Lauded You Become. It Is Intrinsic To The Real Business Of Writing And Should Be Cherished.

I Don't Think In Terms Of That Bizarre Tautology 'value For Money' In My Literary And Journalistic Work - And Nor Will I In My Academic Role. However, If I Don't Believe I'm Helping My Students Towards A Fuller And More Empowering Relationship With The World, Then I'll Resign.

Always Carry A Notebook. And I Mean Always.

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

Life, It Is True, Can Be Grasped In All Its Confused Futility Merely By Opening One's Eyes And Sitting Passively, A Spectator On The Stands Of History - But To Understand The Social Processes And Conflicts, The Interplay Between Individual And Group, Even The Physicality Of Human Experience, We Have Need Of Small-scale Models.