The plain fact is that she never really liked me, and never wanted me. I had been a mistake; and that, to some extent, is what I remain in my own eyes, to this day. The knowledge never goes, can never be undone. You just have to find a way to live with it.

Objectivity is just male subjectivity.

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

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

The biggest markets for my books outside the UK are France and Italy, and those are the two countries where I also have the closest personal relationships with my translators - I don't know whether that's a coincidence, or if there's something to be learned from it.

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

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