It is quite an achievement. People of liberal sympathies, stupefied by relativism, have become the apologists for a creedal wave that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperialist, and genocidal. To put it another way, they are up the arse of those that want them dead.

Faith is a talent, and it goes the way of all your talents. Getting old is the subtraction of your powers. Which very much goes for writing.

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.

You cannot combine being a movie star with not being a movie star.

All novelists write in a different way, but I always write in longhand and then do two versions of typescript on a computer.

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

Saul Bellow says, funny enough, what French think of your work is tremendously important. And it is. It's more than what the Italians, the Spanish, and the Germans think. Somehow it's still got that cultural primacy. I feel that too: to get praised in France is better than to get praised anywhere else.