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

All writers of fiction will at some point find themselves abandoning a piece of work - or find themselves putting it aside, as we gently say.

Most writers need a wound, either physical or spiritual.

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 it comes to flying, I am a nervous passenger but a confident drinker and Valium-swallower.

People look at fame and feel deprived if they haven't got it, feeling that this is a basic, almost a human right, a civil right. And also feel the same way about wealth, I suppose - why haven't I got it?

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.