Sorry, I said to myself, wondering how many times in my marriage I'd said that, how many times I'd meant it, how many times Claire had actually believed it, and, most important, how many times the utterance had any impact whatsoever on our dispute. What a lovely chart one could draw of this word Sorry.

My parents showed me by example that they could balance their work and family lives.

My first book, 'The Age of Wire and String,' came out in 1995, and it was hardly reviewed at all.

Suspense left my life a long time ago, now it has returned. I do not care for it.

I'm an enormous fan of Thomas Bernhard's books, and I like the relentless feeling in his work - the pursuit of darkness, the negative - and I think in some sense I've internalised that as what one is supposed to do.

I'm attracted to how fraught the parent-child relationship is, swerving so easily between love and hostility, with almost no plausible way to end, unless someone dies.

My goal, with whatever I'm working on, is to lose track of time.