I think the virtue I prize above all others is curiosity. If you look really hard at almost anybody, and try to see why they're doing what they're doing, taking a dig at them ceases to be what you want to do even if you hate them.

I think the names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it's at its most powerful.

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.

Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilisers.

In England, everyone believes if you think, then you don't feel. But all my novels are about joining together thinking and feeling.

I think there are a lot more important things than art in the world. But not to me.

I'm not very interested in myself. I do have a deep moral belief that you should always look out at other things and not be self-centred.