My mum was a peacemaker, and in personal things I tend to do that, because I can't deal with personal conflict. I find that horrible.

If you're a politician, you can see there might be times when, to secure the greater good, you have to take a backwards step. That is a matter of tactics.

Bath was dusty and a little shabby when we moved here. It did look its age and you felt its history in its streets and buildings and little alleyways. The sense of the past was palpable. There were some bad modern buildings but there was a patina of age.

People talk about Thatcherism all the time. I felt it was important to record the memories of those almost written out of history who upheld the spirit of '45.

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.

Poetry proceeds from the totality of man, sense, imagination, intellect, love, desire, instinct, blood and spirit together.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.