As someone once said, covers to a novel are like bars to a cage. You can watch the tiger, the Komodo dragon, and admire it - its heart, its severity. Even when they carry out an ugly act, it's still fascinating.

He didn't want to please his readers. He wanted to stretch them until they twanged.

I am, incidentally, the only writer to have received the Somerset Maugham award twice - the first time for my first novel, the second time for my second first novel.

If you feel you have a strong constituency among the young, you can really die happy, because the great unanswered question, the only valid value judgment is whether you're going to last, and that tells you that you are, for a bit at least.

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

One of the unseen benefits of having children is that they deliver you from your own selfishness. There's no going back.

My belief is that everything that's written about you is actually secondary showbiz nonsense, and you shouldn't take any notice of it.