I'm Not Sure If You're

When I Write I Am Trying To Express My Way Of Being In The World. This Is Primarily A Process Of Elimination: Once You Have Removed All The Dead Language, The Second-hand Dogma, The Truths That Are Not Your Own But Other People's, The Mottos, The Slogans, The Out-and-out Lies Of Your Nation, The Myths Of Your Historical Moment - Once You Have Removed All That Warps Experience Into A Shape You Do Not Recognise And Do Not Believe In - What You Are Left With Is Something Approximating The Truth Of Your Own Conception.

Then You Begin To Give Up The Very Idea Of Belonging. Suddenly This Thing, This Belonging,it Seems Like Some Long, Dirty Lie ... And I Begin To Believe That Birthplaces Are Accidents, That Everything Is An Accident. But If You Believe That, Where Do You Go? What Do You Do? What Does Anything Matter?

The Lady Was Old, The Lady Was Ill. It Didn't Matter What The Lady Believed.

I'm Most Honest About Writing When I'm Talking To Family Or Friends, Not To Newspapers.

I Do My Best Work Under Pressure, So I’ll Nick An Artery, And My Husband Isn’t Allowed To Stanch The Bleeding Till I’ve Banged Out A Chapter.