No one wants to know how clever you are. They don't want an insight into your mind, thrilling as it might be. They want an insight into their own.

I have very fond memories of swimming in Walden Pond when we lived in Boston. You'd swim past a log and see all these turtles sunning themselves. Slightly disturbing if you thought about how many more were swimming around your toes, but also rather wonderful.

Bore children, and they stop reading. There's no room for self-indulgence or showing off or setting the scene.

One of the freedoms you get if you earn a lot of money from a book is to throw away what you want. And if you throw a lot away, the good stuff always comes back; nothing is lost.