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

The thing about imagination is that by the very act of putting it down, there must be some truth in one's own imagination.

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.

People endure what they endure and they deal with it. It may corrupt them. It may lead them into all sorts of compensatory excesses.

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.

I also believe in cigarettes, cholesterol, alcohol, carbon monoxide, masturbation, the Arts Council, nuclear weapons, the Daily Telegraph, and not properly labeling fatal poisons, but above all else, most of all, I believe in the one thing that can come out of people's mouths: vomit.

As adults, we do know more, but we don't know enough. People can be very unthinkingly callous.