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

At its grandest, political correctness is an attempt to accelerate evolution.

To idealize: all writing is a campaign against cliché. Not just clichés of the pen but clichés of the mind and clichés of the heart.

Kingsley Amis was a lenient father. His paternal style, in the early years, can best be described as amiably minimalist - in other words, my mother did it all.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

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

It's often said of American politics that it's a huge juggernaut and the president can change the direction by two or three degrees in either direction, but not much more. In fact, I think the president's power is limited, much more than the prime minister in England.