I am a morning writer I am writing at eight-thirty in longhand and I keep at it until twelve-thirty when I go for a swim. Then I come back have lunch and read in the afternoon until I take my walk for the next day's writing.

Those golden minutes before you are completely awake when your mind is just drifting you have no censorship you are ready to develop any kind of idea. That's when I come up with the best and worst ideas. That is the privilege of being a writer - that you can stay in bed for an hour in the morning and it's work time.

I was a government employee in the morning and a writer in the evening.

I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.

I hear that 5 o'clock whistle in my mind like Fred Flintstone and I have to stop. I'm also not much of a morning writer. I have a sweet spot from about 11am to 4pm. But I really work during that time.

As far as I'm concerned the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.

There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings.

We are used to female writers who use their private lives as unmitigated material being somewhat hormonal this somehow 'excuses' what might be seen as a highly unfeminine ability to turn their personal upsets into money.

I turned down twelve films last year... Huge money films but I had no respect for the writer or the work.

The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.