What I had that others didn't was a capacity for sticking to it.

I don't think San Francisco needs defending. I never meet anyone who doesn't love the place, Americans or others.

As soon as I got the Nobel Prize my back collapsed and I was in hospital.

All politicians are not the same. I've never felt that way. What is the same is that voters get very excited about new faces, like Clinton and Blair - and they have unrealistic expectations that the world will change overnight. A cynical old hand like myself knows that it won't.

The Nobel Prize is run by a self-perpetuated committee. They vote for themselves and get the world's publishing industry to jump to their tune.

The most exciting periods of literature have always been those when the critics were great.

Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.