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

The writer I feel the most affinity with - you said you felt my books are 19th century novels, I think they're 18th century novels - is Fielding, Henry Fielding, he's the guy who does it for me.

Objectivity is just male subjectivity.

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

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

Revisionist historians are about to get their hands on the Thatcher years, shes probably going to be looked at again because she feels far enough away now, and we dont see her much on the political landscape in this country, shes kind of disappeared and she doesnt speak out much anymore.

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