There are so many characters whizzing around inside my head, it's like Looney Tunes. But as soon as I've finished writing about them, I completely forget who they are.
As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.
I can remember picking up weighty tomes on the history of science and the history of philosophy and reading those when I was small.
I saw a ghost once, about 20 years ago. It took the form of someone coming out of a sleeping body and sitting at the foot of the bed.
If I did only one thing at a time I'd think I was wasting my time. If, for example, I only wrote novels I would feel like a charlatan and a fraud.
The English have always been greedy for news of times past, with that mixture of fatalism and melancholy which is part of the national character.
Health, money. That's what people worried about in the 14th century as much as today. I find it so much more interesting than the supposed activities of kings, queens, generals.