Writer: What, above all, I'm primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality. If I had to sum up my work, that's it, really. I'm taking the pith out of reality.

Writer: I don't know whether you've ever looked into a miner's eyes - for any length of time, that is. Because it is the loveliest blue you've ever seen. I thi…

If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way.

Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.

You often feel about something in Shakespeare or Dostoevsky that nobody ever said such a thing, but it's just the sort of thing people would say if they could …

I am a fictionalizing philosopher, not a novelist; my novel & story-writing ability is employed as a means to formulate my perception. The core of my writing i…

Let's see the very thing and nothing else. Let's see it with the hottest fire of sight. Burn everything not part of it to ash. Trace the gold sun about the whi…