I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea.

It was like there was some parallel universe we all vanished off to where we had all this sex.

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.

There comes a point when you can more or less count the number of books you're going to write before you die.

I want my words to survive translation. I know when I write a book now I will have to go and spend three days being intensely interrogated by journalists in Denmark or wherever. That fact, I believe, informs the way I write - with those Danish journalists leaning over my shoulder.

Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy.

She might be a great person, but life's so much bigger than just loving someone.