'I was a Betjemaniac; I wore a Larkin smile. My writing desk was Auden-esque, til Yeats became my style.'

'This certainly hasn't declined since the days when I read forbidden books under the bedclothes, but you could say I've got it a little more under control.'

'I found it so much easier to pick up the next day where I left off, to finish what I left unfinished.'

'As a housewife, I fail; as a writer, I need bad housekeeping.'

'Beginning writers should write about what they suspect, what they imagine, not what they know.'

'Every day is a writing day, so long as I put pen to paper, even for five minutes.'

'What can you see as you look at the universe of your play? What structures are there? What natural features?'

'You'll measure your growing fame in invites to do things for free; from publishers, organisers, students, and universities.'

'I don't talk about a novel until I'm well into the first draft, and in fact have a private superstition that it will disappear if I do talk about it too soon.'

'Bring me your newborn idea and your raw curiosity, and I'll give you the tools to transform it into fiction.'