Take a newspaper account of Waterloo or Trafalgar, with all the small advertisements: it seems much more real than reading about it in a history book.
From Patrick O'Brian
When you're taking a fence on a horse, you don't think much; your body does all the thinking, and you're over or you're not over. It's much the same when you are doing a tricky thing with a pen. There are times when I'm writing very, very fast.
Likings arise when one has no earthly reason for liking - the most wildly improbable marriages and uncommon friendship.
The first interviews I gave were entirely unpleasant. You have people trying to trip you up with impolite questions that have nothing to do with the books. It's simply vulgar curiosity, and I won't have it.
In my case, I write in the past because I'm not really part of the present. I have nothing valid to say about anything current, though I have something to say about what existed then.
The function of the novel is the exploration of the human condition. Really, that's what it's all about.
On a ship, everything is enclosed: the people are right on top of each other and can't get up and walk away.
2 perspectives
1 perspectives