If you help them (the crew) create good memories, they'll forget all the bad stuff

The one thing that you can say about the new Cabinet Donald Trump is putting together. That seems to be one of the coherent themes. They're very, very skeptical about Iran.

I think I can recognize when a piece is at a state of completion. I always say to my wife, "Oh yeah, it's roughly finished." I've got it there. And then there's that whole other phase of moving on to properly amp up the sentences and sometimes to move stuff around as well.

Each of my book arrives at a form and a style that is appropriate to the subject.

I've never been much drawn towards satire of any kind. I don't like that style whereby you kind of stitch people up. But the deeper thing is that I just find these people so impressive and admirable.

Beware of clichés. Not just the ­clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought - even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are ­clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.

I published so many books, which, for years, didn't get published here in America, at all - and which barely got any attention in England. So it wasn't going to take much to make me feel suddenly famous. So - yeah - after 20 years, I'm an overnight success.