I just got an honorary degree from Glasgow University, and I had to wear around very painful shoes so that I didn't laugh all the way through the ceremony because I felt like an outlaw.

Because I write a book a year, I always want to do one other project every year that's stimulating in a different way. It means you can be working but not using up your prose juice, you know?

If you went for a job interview in a Glasgow law firm, they used to ask you what school you went to. And that was a way of finding out what religion you were.

Most of the people who write to me are really clever, really engaged. They just want to say that they have read my book and liked it.

To have a very strong opinion all the time is corrosive to a person's intellect. It becomes your default position.

People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.

There's always these giant baffling books, like 'The Da Vinci Code.' People say it's not as well written as 'Midnight's Children.' Why aren't people reading 'Midnight's Children?' Nobody knows why these phenomenons happen but they're great.