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.

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.

Nine times out of 10, the most charming thing to say in any given situation will be the exact opposite of what one really feels.

These days any self-respecting exhibition of nude photos has to have pornographically explicit images to prove that they are works of art.

Whatever people may say about my books - and it always amazes me when people don't like them, but sometimes they don't - the epigraphs have always been top-drawer. I think having that at the outset protects me from a lot of potential problems.

The perfect life, the perfect lie, I realised after Christmas, is one which prevents you from doing that which you would ideally have done (painted, say, or written unpublishable poetry) but which, in fact, you have no wish to do. People need to feel that they have been thwarted by circumstances from pursuing the life which, had they led it, they would not have wanted; whereas the life they really want is precisely a compound of all those thwarting circumstances.

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