For many imaginative writers, working for the press is a fact of their life. But it's best not to like it too much.

The writer I adore is Ivy Compton-Burnett.I couldn't get more than a few pages in when I first read her. In many ways, she is very clumsy and her plots are rubbish. But we don't read her for that. There are pages and pages of dialogue. What it requires is real effort and attention.

I dislike pastiche; it attracts attention to the language only.

When narratives fracture, when words fail, I take consolation from the part of my life that always works: the stationery order. The mail-order stationery people supply every need from royal blue Quink to a dazzling variety of portable hard drives.

I'm a very organised and rational and linear thinker and you have to stop all that to write a novel.

Busyness, I feel increasingly, is the writer's curse and downfall. You read too much and write too readily, you become cut off from your inner life, from the flow of your own thoughts, and turned far too much towards the outside world.

She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?'" "He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful.