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.

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

Nicholson Baker talks about the way in which the most successful nonfiction books are those that can be boiled down into an argument so that everybody can wade in with an opinion without having to undergo the inconvenience of having to read the book itself. The more you can condense it, the better.

[William] Eggleston's photographs look like they were taken by a Martian who lost the ticket for his flight home and ended up working at a gun shop in a small town near Memphis. On the weekend he searches for the ticket - it must be somewhere - with a haphazard thoroughness that confounds established methods of investigation.

All the best essays are epistemological journeys from ignorance or curiosity to knowledge.

The process of book writing for me is entirely one of trial and error.

I don't like my books being defined by their "about"-ness. So now the subtitle has just become a kind of strap-line on the cover.