“Doing a jigsaw was not an intelligence test, or a personality assesment programme; it was a pursuit that lay somewhere between creation and imitation and discovery and reverie.”

“There would be more genuine rejoicing at the discovery of a complete new novel by Jane Austen than any other literary discovery, short of a new major play by Shakespeare.”

“[on John Cowper Powys]...there is an indistinct photograph of the great man himself, gazing into the misty cleft of a mountain range, wearing what could be an old rug, or an old cardigan. He looks like a cross between an aged werewolf and a puzzled child.”

“What really annoys me are the ones who write to say, I am doing your book for my final examinations and could you please tell me what the meaning of it is. I find it just so staggering--that you're supposed to explain the meaning of your book to some total stranger! If I knew what the meanings of my books were, I wouldn't have bothered to write them.”

“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.”

“Too much of the world was inhospitable, intractable... Why prove that it had ever once been green?”

“I actually remember feeling delight, at two o'clock in the morning, when the baby woke for his feed, because I so longed to have another look at him.”