And what he meant was that maths wasn't like life because in life there are no straightforward answers in the end

Stories about mental aberration and oddity only make sense in context. Just how do people live with someone who is peculiar, gifted, strange or alien? It's odd because there's a little part of me that wants to write about exotic, strange bizarre subjects. Instead, I've rather reluctantly realised that what I write about is families.

If one book's done this well, you want to write another one that does just as well. There's that horror of the second novel that doesn't match up.

I could invent another world. I'm not terribly keen on this one.

As a kid, I didn't read a great deal of fiction, and I've forgotten most of what I did read.

I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.

Indeed, I am repeatedly astonished by the number of really good writers who understand human beings so well on paper but don't know how to deal with them in real life.