It's good fun to create an unpredictable character. When he comes into the room, I don't know what he's going to do - I have to find my way.

I say the sentences again and again in my head until they sound right.

Often it doesn't occur to you what kind of novel you're writing until quite late on.

Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be universal.

I think it's likely that the civilizing effect of literature has done most of the work, and still continues to do. Look at Steven Pinker's book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. It proves beyond any shadow of doubt that violence has declined dramatically throughout the centuries. There are various reasons for it: the rise of the state, Leviathan, the monopoly of violence, children's rights, animal rights. They're all positive signs.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

The trouble with life is its amorphousness, its ridiculous fluidity. Look at it: thinly plotted, largely themeless, sentimental and ineluctably trite. The dialogue is poor, or at least violently uneven. The twists are either predictable or sensationalist. And it’s always the same beginning, and the same ending.