It is not important for me as a writer that you leave a piece of writing of mine with either an agreement or even a resonance with what I have said. What is important is that you leave with the resonance of what you have felt and what you thought in reaction to that.

A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation... Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger.

Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.

The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.

I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable.

I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare.

The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.