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

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.

People die when curiosity goes.

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.

Part of the very impulse of writing for me is actually wanting to get away from myself.

If you can't stand your own company alone in a room for long hours, or, when it gets tough, the feeling of being in a locked cell, or, when it gets tougher still, the vague feeling of being buried alive-then don't be a writer.

I think what I like to do is to begin with the ordinary and find the extraordinary in it.