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

I think if the monarchy were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't have a huge effect on the national mind-set.

Back in my 20s, when I wrote 'A Place of Greater Safety,' the French Revolution novel, I thought, 'I'll always have to write historical novels because I can't do plots.'' But in the six years of writing that novel, I actually learned to write, to invent things.

If you are without impulses, you are, to a degree, without joy..." 469

Imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you.

It is all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow.

It is almost a joke, but a joke that nobody tells.