I do my thinking while I walk. It just loosens up the mind in the way that you don't get when you are sitting at a desk.

Of course there are times when I hate London, but equally there are times when I can walk 'round a corner and I really feel that this is my place.

There’s this thing called progress. But it doesn’t progress. It doesn’t go anywhere. Because as progress progresses the world can slip away. It’s progress if you can stop the world slipping away. My humble model for progress I the reclamation of land. Which is repeatedly, never-ending retrieving what it lost. A dogged and vigilant business. A dull yet valuable business. A hard, inglorious business. But you shouldn’t go mistaking the reclamation of land for the building of empires.

I share my name with an aerobatic bird that can whiz across a whole summer sky in seconds. A swift is so equipped for speed that it can scarcely cope with being stationary.

How quick and rushing life can sometimes seem, when at the same time it's so slow and sweet and everlasting.

All novelists must form their personal pacts in some way with the slowness of their craft. There are some who demand of themselves a 'rate of production,' for whom it's a matter of pride to complete, say, a book every year.

Happiness quells thought. And work quells thought.