While I'm sure people in Britain have money worries, they don't have them like the French do. The French, however much money they have, are worried. They're a very stressed people. It seems to be a very essential component of the national psyche.

When I started writing fiction it always seemed in retrospect (I didn't realise at the time) that it was always caused by environments rather than by incidents and characters.

The construction industry likes nothing more than a blank canvas onto which they can impose a brand new building, because that way they can make more money.

I think that cheap music often does make you dream more than more serious music, whether that's serious music by Beethoven or Miles Davis or Pink Floyd... if the Floyd ever did serious music, which I seriously doubt.

As primitive as digital can be, there is nothing automatic in the methods I use, it's all basically done by hand. I know nothing about computers. I don't like computers. I use them for writing because I have to. I have never had a conversation about computers in my life.

The only bright feature of cultural relativism's triumph is that it has become establishment orthodoxy and will thus one day be derided, resisted and overthrown.

I don't think things necessarily should have a meaning. If stuff has a meaning then why do [writing] about it? If you're trying to say, 'Tall buildings are great' why not just leave it at that: "Tall buildings are great."