'I didn't want to write about grief, or jealousy; I wanted to write about someone shopping at Tesco and suddenly realising they were grief-stricken or jealous.'

'Voice, for me, has to be a tool or it is nothing, and writing, for me, is not self-expression, it's an art form.'

'Once you have a draft you have something to work with, and in many ways, that's where the magic begins.'

'Montaigne was dead set against authoritarians, system-makers and pedants. He celebrated diversity, personal liberty and tolerance.'

'I'd rather be thought of as a dissident than a company man; poetry should never have an office in City Hall.'

'Ignore those who tell you that your poetry is too personal, too intimate, or lyrical. Remember, these are the very things you crave in other poets.'

'For her ability to seize precisely the right historical detail to fix a story in time and place, Bainbridge is a true inspiration.'

'Just write the next line. Someone says something; there's always a reply. Now I could begin.'

'This is the book I come back to once a year. This is the story that makes me want to tell stories.'

'If you write too, let me encourage you to write from the writer in you, before the word "writer" takes too much shape.'