“Writing is a consequence of having been 'haunted' by material. Why this is, no one knows.”

“But why should one be ashamed of writing badly in spite of knowing better – it’s results that shows errors”

“Now I must, I suppose, explain why I have been writing this account. […] I have written to disclose myself to myself, and I am writing now because I will, I know, sometime read what I am now writing and wonder. Perhaps by the time I do, I will have solved the mystery of myself, or perhaps I will no longer care to know the solution.”

“Dictators, perhaps because they know their own lies so well, have usually realised the power of history. Consequently, they have tried to re-write, deny, or destroy the past.”

“That's why I call this place the Haunted Bookshop. Haunted by the ghosts of the books I haven't read. Poor uneasy spirits, they walk and walk around me. There's only one way to lay the ghost of a book, and that is to read it.”

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.”

“You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know”

“There are many reasons why novelists write but they all have one thing in common a need to create an alternative world.”

“Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.”

“At any rate I found myself writing because I had to write, although I didn’t know why.”