The first essential in writing about anything is that the writer should have no experience of the matter.

We are increasingly likely to find ourselves in places with background music. No composers have thought to write for these modern spaces which represent 30% of our musical experience.

I write out of my intellectual experience.

Every secret of a writer's soul every experience of his life every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

As many political writers have pointed out commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones.

I always thought we had an environmental problem but I hadn't realized how urgent it was. James Lovelock writes that by the end of this century there will be one billion people left.

Good education means learning to read write and most importantly learn how to learn so that you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up.

It's commonly said that people who've been ill in childhood and who've had an upset education never really regret that they do. It means that you don't look at the world in the way that other people do and if you were inclined to be a writer that's a help.

A writer should get as much education as possible but just going to school is not enough if it were all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

There were all us baby boomers who had a grammar school education started to learn then went on the pill the whole thing and so there are today a lot more women writers editors producers and so a lot more women's stories. God the BBC's practically run by women.