Thatcherism has become bigger than she ever was.

I'm one of those unlucky people who had a happy childhood.

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.

You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it.

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

Sometimes I feel that I am destined always to be offstage whenever the main action occurs. That God has made me the victim of some cosmic practical joke, by assigning me little more than a walk-on part in my own life. Or sometimes I feel that my role is simply to be a spectator to other people's stories, and always to wander away at the most important moment, drifiting into the kitchen to make a cup of tea just as the denouement unfolds.

Objectivity is just male subjectivity.