I like the idea of a big caesura between the narratives, a space which readers can fill in with their own speculative history.

But you can try to read books at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons.

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.

Writers never feel comfortable having labels attached to them, however accurate they are.

I live a perfectly happy and comfortable life in Blair's Britain, but I can't work up much affection for the culture we've created for ourselves: it's too cynical, too knowing, too ironic, too empty of real value and meaning.

As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic.

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