When policemen go to prison in England, they have as bad a time as a pedophile.

All the things we value in society don't mean much in fiction.

The argument, now, is about whether Bolshevik Russia was 'better' than Nazi Germany. In the days when the New Left dawned, the argument was about whether Bolshevik Russia was better than America.

Love is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black.

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.

Tremendous interest in the superficial is very characteristic of cultures in decline.

I think novelists are in the education business, really, but they're not teaching you times tables, they are teaching you responsiveness and morality and to make nuanced judgments. And really to just make the planet look a bit richer when you go out into the street.