I resisted parenthood for a long, long time. But having a daughter has given me a sense of hopefulness that I didn't have before.

You have to respect people's suffering. To deny that the world is unfair and painful for most of the people living in it would be false and judgmental.

As a writer you sometimes feel the need to shake things up.

I have a deep suspicion of social institutions and tradition in general.

I'm not religious. I do have a baby - a four-month old girl - and that's a religion in itself.

I find that the creative side of my brain and the archival side of my brain don't work well together. When I've done my best work, I've been in a trance-like state.

To me, a mark of maturity is realizing that nobody runs the world. Fat cat politicians and secret conspiracies don't control our lives. In reality, the world is much more complex than that.