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

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.

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

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

Objectivity is just male subjectivity.

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

We say, 'Shall we meet for a drink?', as though drinking were the main end of the appointment, and the matter of company only incidental, we are so shy about admitting our need for one another.[...]We say, 'Would you like to come for some coffee?', as though it were less frightening to acknowledge that we are heavily dependent on mildly stimulating drinks, than to acknowledge that we are at all dependent on the companionship of other people.