I think it's quite difficult to understand what kind of life a writer leads. They might be millionaires, or they might be starving people.

What do you think dignity's all about?' The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. 'It's rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,' I said. 'But I suspect it comes down to not removing one's clothing in public.

What interests me is the surprising enormous extent to which most people accept the fate that's been given to them, and find some dignity.

Every country should have a strong literary tradition of its own at the center, but it should also have an interest in other countries.

I really have to think of the things fiction can do that film can't and play to the strengths of the novel. With a novel you can get right inside somebody's head.

Typically in my novels the narrator tells a story by remembering, and the memories are colored by this and colored by that. So the whole universe of the novel tends to be framed by the narrator's memories and thoughts.

But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one's past for such 'turning points', one is apt to start seeing them everywhere.