It is not the conscious changes made in their lives by men and women-a new job, a new town, a divorce-which really shape them, like the chapter headings in a biography, but a long slow mutation of emotion, hidden, all-penetrative... .

A child understands fear, and the hurt and hate it brings.

Newspapers are horror happening to other people.

Peace. The upland serenity of high altitude, the openness of grassland without indigenous bush or trees; the greening, yellowing or silver-browning that prevailed, according to season.

There's no tiling moral about beauty.

Literature is one of the few areas left where black and white feel some identity of purpose; we all struggle under censorship.