"The unknownness of my needs frightens me. I do now know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met. If you want to find out the circumference of an oil drop, you can use lycopodium powder. That’s what I’ll find. A tub of lycopodium powder, and I will sprinkle it on to my needs and find out how large they are. Then when I meet someone I can write up the experiment and show them what they have to take on."

You may also like:

• 

  Angela Carter
  Novelist

• 

  Anne Tyler
  Novelist

• 

  Colm Toibin
  Novelist

• 

  Hanif Kureishi
  Playwright

• 

  Howard Jacobson
  Author

• 

  Margaret Atwood
  Poet

• 

  Sarah Waters
  Novelist

• 

  Susie Orbach
  Psychotherapist

• 

  Virginia Woolf
  Writer