Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby.... There's a feeling of relief and satisfaction when you get to the end. A feeling that you have brought your family, your characters, home. Then a sort of post-natal depression and then, very quickly, the horizon of a new book. The consolation that next time I will do it better.

To possess another language is to possess another soul.

I've always had difficulties with female characters.

When you're my age, you have the feeling sometimes that you're seeing the show come round again.

I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

Give a man a car of his own and he leaves humility and common sense behind him in the garage.

A dead man is the worst enemy alive, I thought. You can't alter his power over you. You can't alter what you love or owe. And it's too late to ask him for his absolution. He has beaten you all ways.