Find the extraordinary inside the ordinary.

And then I thought that I had to be like Sherlock Holmes and I had to detach my mind at will to a remarkable degree so that I did not notice how much it was hurting inside my head.

Being clever was when you looked at how things were and used the evidence to work out something new.

At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We have jobs, children, partners, debts. This is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks.

Science and literature give me answers. And they ask me questions I will never be able to answer.

Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing.

..because when we look up into the sky at night there will be no darkness, just the blazing light of billions and billions of stars, all falling.