“Yes there are psychos out there but not as many as you think. Paedos make the news because what they do is disgusting. The millions, billions or whatever it is, of men who aren't paedos don't make the news.”

“People are good but we don't really get to hear about them because the media is only interested in the freak show; it makes the world look much worse than it is.”

“Empty-page staring again tonight. It's maddening. I suppose people who don't write (like the Connollies) imagine anything that can be though can be expressed. Well, I don't know. I can't do it. It's this sort of thing that makes me belittle the whole business: what's the good of a 'talent' if you can't do it when you want to? What should we think of a woodcarver who couldn't woodcarver? or a pianist who couldn't play the piano? Bah, likewise grrr.”

“In the dead hour the ghosts creep out of the bush and go howling across the dunes, screaming their unfinished business to the night. But I'm nothing to them so they ignore me.”

“We start each day with a blank sheet of paper in front of us, and what we write on it is up to us.”

“You've got that look about you, like you've seen more than you should have.”

“He [my father] wasn't as bad towards me as he was to mum. Just absent.”