Probably all writers are at some point briefly under the impression that they are in the forefront of disintegration and chaos, that they are among the first to live and work after things fall apart.

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.

My literary career kicked off in 1956 when, as a resident of Swansea, South Wales, I published my first novel, 'Lucky Jim.

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

In America, the policeman is a working-class hero. In England, the policeman is a working-class traitor.

You see tragedy requires persons of heroic stature. It works on the principle of people being more than humansuper-humanand also being only too human. But there just aren't many great figures around now, so the tragic mechanisms can't work.

My 12-year-old daughter said to me, "Enough with the subtitles, Daddy, for crying out loud." Because they always seem to cloud the issue rather than clarify it.