One of the many things I do not understand about Americans is this: what is it like to be a citizen of a superpower, to maintain democratically the means of planetary extinction. I wonder how this contributes to the dreamlife of America, a dreamlife that is so deep and troubled.

The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone.

Envy never comes to the ball dressed as envy; it comes dressed as high moral standards or distaste for materialism.

I want incremental improvements. There's the record of all the revolutionary and violent change and extremism in general - it's dreadful.

Don't dumb down; always write for your top five percent of readers.

No-one is going to sit down and read Bleak House to the family any more, but they can all huddle up happily in front of Charles Bronson.

In Germany, they were very interested in talking about their past. I respect that, and I think they've done quite well. It's become a kind of obsession, as it bloody well should, when compared, for example, to France, which hasn't done anything. France has done no work about their part in transporting eighty thousand people to their deaths. They are still the guy in the leather jacket with the onion, who's a part of La Résistance. In fact, they collaborated, not resisted.