That image of the countryside being a threatening place still exists. People continue to resist the challenge of learning about aspects of life they don't understand.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

Writing Part of the Scenery has been a very different experience. I have been reminded of people and events, real and imaginary which have been part of my life. This book is a celebration of the land which means so much to me.

You know what it's like to persuade a pigheaded child to do something they don't want to. If they hear the same suggestion from someone else, they'll go right off and do it.

I always read that men don't like intelligent girls, but I've always found the reverse.

Of course risk-taking does not always pay off, but it's a lot of fun!

People try much less hard to make a marriage work than they used to fifty years ago. Divorce is easier.

Women's courage is rather different from men's. The fact that women have to bring up children and look after husbands makes them braver at facing long-term issues, such as illness. Men are more immediately courageous. Lots of people are brave in battle.

A lot of people stop short. They don't actually die but they say, 'Right I'm old, and I'm going to retire,' and then they dwindle into nothing. They go off to Florida and become jolly boring.

They may turn out to be a great disappointment, or perhaps they may be full of enchanting surprises.

I remember the evacuee children from towns and cities throwing stones at the farm animals. When we explained that if you did that you wouldn't have any milk, meat or eggs, they soon learned to respect the animals.

Unimaginative people are spared quite a lot. They're often much happier, because they don't go through all the variety of conceptions of the person they love.

Each marriage has to be judged separately, and we never know what's going on in another person's marriage.

I don't write for any particular kind of person.

I found out only recently that we were making an index of enemy code signs.

I have a garden, and I'm passionately interested in young people.

I have deliberately left Sylvester and Julia's appearances to the reader's imagination.

I never really know the title of a book until it's finished.

It seemed sensible to move to a market town where I could walk everywhere.

Looking back, I understand that I was teaching myself to write.