The very things that separated me and distinguished me from other people were what mattered; the very things no one else would or could say, these were the things I had to say.

Throughout my childhood I believed that what I thought about was different from what other kids thought about. It was not necessarily more profound, but there was a struggle going on inside me to find some sort of creative or spiritual or aesthetic way of seeing the world and organizing it in my head.

Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.

I thought, acted, and thereupon found myself removed.

I wished I could be alone in my room, with my books, away from these people.

From a very early age, I've had to interrupt my education to go to school.

I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life.

Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.

If I'm engrossed in a book, I have to rearrange my thoughts before I can mingle with other people, because otherwise they might think I was strange.

Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently.

I've drawn myself apart from them all; I am my own skipper and later on I shall see where I come to land

The harder I tried to assimilate, the more I had the feeling that I was distancing myself from my culture, betraying my parents and my origins, that I was playing a game by somebody else's rules.

I learned to create a little more space between my thoughts and actions — actually between my feelings and reactions. This is extremely important; without it, life can be a real roller coaster ride.

I had friends but I was spending a great deal of my time alone and for me that was vital because there's an awful lot you learn about yourself when you're alone.