Thatcherism has become bigger than she ever was.

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.

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

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.

It seems to me that you would have to write a novel on a very small, intimate scale for it not to become political.

I had no sense of any reputation that What a Carve Up! might acquire - at the time I didnt even have a publisher, so my main worry was whether it was even going to see the light of day or not.