It's no use imagining that bringing great writers together inevitably precipitates great conversation.

The thing about the 'Melrose' novels is that I have to feel they're impossible when I set out.

Surely: the adverb of a man without an argument.

Irony is the hardest addiction of all. Forget heroin. Just try giving up irony, the deep-down need to mean two things at once, to be in two places at once, not to be there for the catastrophe of a fixed meaning.

I'm really not responsible for what mental operation people have when they're reading my books other than the ones which are created by literary effects.

Proust is a hero of mine. I read 'A la recherche' in one go, and I'm a very slow reader. It had an astonishing impact, reading it on my own and being my main company. I think Proust is the most intelligent person to ever have written a novel.

The Booker 2011 is of no more interest to me than the world heavyweight championship, which I'm not going to win either. It's irrelevant.