The dance called tha Sardana, young men and women in a circle holding hands high, prancing with sedate vigor to music with a panpipe flavour.

Languages never stand still. Modern spelling crystallises lost pronunciations: the visual never quite catches up with the aural.

Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone.Â

Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community

Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community.

Laugh and the world laughs with you; snore, and you sleep alone!

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent, experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it, if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

I'm a natural clown, I suppose, in writing, and one has to accept that; I can't do anything about it. I have written one or two novels which are not specifically funny. I wrote a study of Shakespeare which was not intended to be funny, but some people regard it as such.

To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art.

I enjoy journalism; anybody does. You see the results immediately; you've got an immediate audience instead of having to wait for your audience as you do if you're writing a book, and you get a bit of money coming in, and you can see more clearly how you're paying the bills. But it's not a good position for the serious novelist to be in.