The writers we tend to universally admire, like Beckett, or Kafka, or TS Eliot, are not very prolific.

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

Writers take words seriously-perhaps the last professional class that does-and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader.

We tend to become like those whom we admire.

Old age treats freelance writers pretty gently.

Memories, impressions and emotions from the first 20 years on earth are most writers' main material; little that comes afterward is quite so rich and resonant.