Dickens is a much misunderstood and mis-approached writer, in that he tends to be read, particularly in the twentieth century, as a social commentator - like the great Victorians, a realist in his way. But he isn't at all like that. His genre is actually more like a fairy tale - weird transformations, long voyages from which people come back altered, parental mysteries, semi-magical twists.

The literary interview won't tell you what a writer is like. Far more compellingly to some, it will tell you what a writer is like to interview.

You can kill time in a number of ways but it always depends on the kind of time you're fighting: some time is unkillable, immortal

While making love, we often talk about money. I like it. I like that dirty talk

You can't be up the reader's ass, as many a writer I think is - cute as hell, ingratiating as hell. But that's not loving the reader in the right way. That's toadying to the reader.

My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.

My father always had doubts about the Booker prize, although they evaporated on the announcement that he had won it.