“Are you going to give a speech?' she asked gaily.He gave a choked laugh. 'Of course not,' he said. 'Not for ages.''My cousin Davey gave one on his very first day!' ...'In the Lords, I remember. It ...”

“If theres a single idea I emphasize when people ask about writing, its that theres no right way to produce a book. But I do think that whatever you do, you should do regularly, whether its waking u...”

“Of course, thats one of the dreams of modernist literature, whether realist or fantastic: that the more stories we tell each other about such tragedies, the fewer of them there will be. Were still ...”

“There are a lot of ways for a novelist to create suspense, but also really only two: one a trick, one an art.The trick is to keep a secret. Or many secrets, even. In Lee Childs books, Jack Reacher ...”

“The Thames was beautiful, dark, and swift beneath the billion yellow and white lights of the city”

“He often envied people who hadn't read his favourite books. They had such happiness before them.”

“I took to the Bodleian library as to a lover and ... would sit long hours in Bodley's arms to emerge, blinking and dazed with the smell and feel of all those books.”

“It was four o'clock of a stickily wet Saturday. As long as it is anything from Monday to Friday the average library attendant goes around thanking her stars she isn't a school-teacher; but the last...”

“The world is quiet here.”

“I've always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library.”

“Rome has been called the "Sacred City": - might not our Oxford be called so too? There is an air about it, resonant of joy and hope: it speaks with a thousand tongues to the heart: it waves its mig...”