The more my work improves or broadens or widens, the more surely I tame myself.

The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they've been in.

Some of the words and symbols and images from childhood will continually be part and parcel of my personality.

You have to assert something about yourself in order to be yourself.

There's no end to the inventiveness of critics, I tell you. Because they can't write fiction, they put their impulse into their analysis of work.

Politics is still crucially important. Our choices are vital, and we've got to make them and not just say, 'Oh they're all the same.' They are all the same in certain ways, alas - a political animal is such an animal.

I haven't had a single moment of terror since they told me [I was dying]. My only regret is to die four pages too soon. If I can finish, then I'm quite happy to go.