I have the feeling of this completely alternative person I should have become. There was another life that I might have had, but I’m having this one.

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 think there is a huge difference between writers who have very big sales, and writers who have small sales. Even writers with very high reputations, even Nobel prize winners, often sell in very low figures.

I want my words to survive translation.

And if these incidents now seem full of significance and all of a piece, it's probably because I'm looking at them in the light of what came later.

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.

I've always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.