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 like these nonfiction books where everything that is interesting about them is lost in that catch-all description of their "about"-ness.

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.

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

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.

I would agree on the aging thing. Because, at a certain point, once you start noticing it, it is your subject. And I know young that people, when they get to 30, say, "Oh, I'm so old." But actually, around 50, you do become conscious of it.

I think, about the distinction between fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is not really about anything: it is what it is. But nonfiction - and you see this particularly with something like the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction - nonfiction we define in relation to what it's about. So, Stalingrad by Antony Beevor. It's "about" Stalingrad. Or, here's a book by Claire Tomalin: it's "about" Charles Dickens.