We artists love to talk tough, but we're just as sentimental as everyone else when it comes down to it.

All art at a certain level is entertainment. We go to a tragedy by Sophocles to be entertained.

I'm full of self-doubt. I doubt everything I do. Everything I do is a failure.

Dogs are dim creatures, do not speak to me of their good sense--have you ever heard of a team of tomcats hauling a sled across the frozen wastes?

Where I went, no one could follow. Yet someone managed to hold my hand.

Doing what you do well is death. Your duty is to keep trying to do things that you don't do well, in the hope of learning.

The Booker Prize is a big, popular prize for big, popular books, and that's the way it should be.