We have a huge institution that celebrates the undistinguished, an institution which is nearly as old as the Papists. It's been going on for millennia. What else is a monarchy but a series of ridiculously exalted figures who are not necessarily distinguished at all? In fact, they have a rather philistine tradition. So perhaps we are more vulnerable to it than other countries.

Belief is otiose; reality is sufficiently awesome as it stands.

America has had much more respect for its writers because they had to define what America was. America wasn't sure what it was.

For myself and my loved ones, I want the heat, which comes at the speed of light. I don't want to have to hang about for the blast, which idles along at the speed of sound.

Most writers need a wound, either physical or spiritual.

Who would want the socialist Utopia? Especially if you were at all artistic - you want all those inequalities, because that's what makes life interesting.

There isn't what my father called the cruising hostility of the English press - where they're looking around for something to attack. You don't feel that there's a great reservoir of resentment in the press as you do in England.