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A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.

I think that unless you grew up in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, you're sheltered.

If you are a serious writer or just a normal one, in one way or another, you are writing in the service of freedom. All writers know, understand, or dream that their work will be in the service of freedom.

All my life, I will continue obstinately to write about love, solitude and passion among the kind of people I know. The rest don't interest me.

Because I've lived a risky and unconventional life, I don't often struggle for subjects to write about.

I think certainly if I'd started getting published when I was in my early twenties, I was quite sheltered then and didn't know anything much about the world. I hadn't had any direct experience of how the world works.

I'm the first to admit I've had a sheltered life. I grew up in the country and went to a boarding school. It was all just part of the business - be nice to everyone and all that.

I love hearing other people's stories, and I freely admit I'm scavenging for material through their conversations, but really, at the same time, I'm living an ordinary life.

I don't think I've had a very interesting life, and I feel that is a great liberation. That gives me great freedom as a fiction writer. Nothing that happened holds any special tyranny over me.