I was in my early thirties writing about my early twenties, so there was this way of seeing my younger self from enough of a distance to have perspective but also not to feel that I had to protect myself. My dreams for myself then would have undersold myself in a way.

If there's anything weirder than an introverted writer going to lots of social functions, it's an introverted writer being converted into an accidental guru.

I was in my early thirties writing about my early twenties, so there was this way of seeing my younger self from enough of a distance to have perspective but also not to feel that I had to protect myself. My dreams for myself then would have undersold myself in a way.

It's easier in an urban world to cast the blame outward. So I've learned a lot about my own process in that way.

My son is now fourteen, and from the moment he was born, I understood that forevermore my heart would be walking around outside my body.

I've always felt like my nose is pressed to glass. I always feel a little bit like an outsider.

After my family leaves in the morning, I'll make my first coffee of the day and then I head upstairs to go to work. At least, that's my plan. I'm not going to check email. I'm not going on Facebook, or sneaking a glimpse at my Instagram feed. No. I'm not going to down that road. But with multiple devices, by the time I get upstairs [to my study] I may well have heard my iPhone ding and - it's Pavlovian.