I have been to Turkey almost every summer holiday of my life and pretty much only on summer holidays, which makes me a very shallow Turk indeed.

Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.

I'm completely cricketed out. If I never have to write another word about cricket again, I'll be a happy man.

The greater the novel, the more it is apt to embody the special, non-replicable properties of the written medium.

If what you want to do is write, then it's madness not to do it.

One of the great pluses of being an immigrant is you get to start again in terms of your identity. You get to shed the narratives which cling to you.

I have been to Turkey almost every summer holiday of my life and pretty much only on summer holidays, which makes me a very shallow Turk indeed.