I always hope to come up with a style of writing that's appropriate to the material and I felt like this was. And then there's plenty of - I don't know if it's the right word but - lampooning, but it's always at my expense.

Quite often, ambition operates on a level of irritation. Not even jealousy, just irritation.

Life is bearable even when it's unbearable: that is what's so terrible, that is the unbearable thing about it.

Getting too much money too soon can be really bad. There's a balance to be kept - the right balance between new experience and a certain stability in one's life. I'm conscious of all these things in a way that, earlier on, I was only conscious of circumstantial stuff, like, money.

Like most writers I spend a lot of my time sort of thinking, "It's such agony, I can't do it."

If Donald Trump thinks that just by being unpredictable that somehow he can have an impact, but not necessarily commit himself to certain things, that's not the way it is going to be read in foreign capitals. Foreign governments are going to take these things very literally and very directly.

Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.