It is good for a man to invite his ghosts into his warm interior, out of the wild night, into the firelight, out of the howling dark.

The individual appears for an instant, joins the community of thought, modifies it and dies; but the species, that dies not, reaps the fruit of his ephemeral existence.

Things are not what they seem.

Louis de Bernires is in the direct line that runs through Dickens and Evelyn Waugh. . .he has only to look into his world, one senses, for it to rush into reality, colours and touch and taste.

I like feeling my way into different minds and experiences. It comes naturally and always has.

I don't understand why, in my work, writing is always so dangerous. It's very destructive. People who write books are destroyers.

I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity.