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

There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.

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.

If you were a boy and a girl and you were in love with each other, really, properly in love, and if you could show it, then the people who run Hailsham, they sorted it out for you. They sorted it out so you could have a few years together before you began your donations.

Your life must now run the course that's been set for it.

Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory.

There was a time you saw me once, one afternoon, in the dormitories. There was no one else around, and I was playing this tape, this music. I was sort of dancing with my eyes closed and you saw me.' '...yes, I remember that occasion. I still think about it from time to time.' 'That's funny, so do I.