The more melancholy side of my literary personality is much in tune with BS Johnson's.

For many weeks after [my wife] died, I could not get used to the feeling of coldness and lifelessness on her side of the bed - and it was even worse when they took the body away and buried her.

But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

As soon as you start writing about how human beings interact with each other socially, you're into politics, aren't you?

Contemporary Britain seems an endlessly fascinating place to me - but if I knew a little bit more about other places, and other times, maybe it wouldn't.

Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.

I like the rain before it falls. of course there is no such thing, she said. That's why it's my favorite. Something can still make you happy, can't it, even if it isn't real.