I have an editor in my head, that's why I can't read Harry Potter, because Rowling is such a lousy writer.

I escaped the torture of my childhood home by reading. To this day it is still one of my greatest pleasures.

The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.

I am writing a sequel to The Touch because I want to further explore the Chinese question that I have raised. There will be more about that in a sequel.

We're working-class people, which means we don't get rich or have maids. Be content with what you are and what you have.

It's a dead give away of an inexperienced writer if every character speaks with the same voice

That's the purpose of old age... To give us a breathing space before we die, in which to see why we did what we did.