Childhood is a disease - a sickness that you grow out of.

We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything.

If you... scaled down human beings, scaled down society, if you land with a group of little boys, they are more like a scaled-down version of society than a group of little girls would be.

A novel ensures that we can look before and after, take action at whatever pace we choose, read again and again, skip and go back. The story in a book is humble and serviceable, available, friendly, is not switched on and off but taken up and put down, lasts a lifetime.

My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.