Iris Murdoch did influence my early novels very much, and influence is never entirely good.
From A. N. Wilson
I think one of the very frightening things about the regime of the National Socialists is that it made people happy.
Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not.
If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year. I don't manage nearly that... but I have published slightly too much recently.
I believe the collapse of the House of Windsor is tied in with the collapse of the Church of England.
I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today, but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.
I think I became a Catholic to annoy my father.
The scribbler's life is never done.
My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.
It seems astonishing to be paid for indulging in pure pleasure. For me to go to Coburg is rather as if a trainspotter was sent for a few weeks to Swindon or a chocoholic asked on holiday by Green and Black.
3 perspectives
1 perspectives