If the culture is so all pervasive that you can’t think outside of it, how are you making genuine choices?

I don't want to get hung up on what 'people,' that nebulous mass, think about me. That's the way to unhappiness, I think.

Sometimes I look back and I am shocked. Everyday of my life I have prepared for success, worked for it, waited for it, and you don't notice how the days pass until nearly a lifetime is finished. Then it hits you--the thing you have been waiting for has already gone by. And it was going in the other direction. It's like I've been waiting on the wrong side of the road for a bus that was already full." p. 265

A new car is not going to change your life.

I started writing 'Brick Lane' when my children were two years and five months old. We were on holiday in the north of England when I was overtaken by a compulsion to start writing.

Some writers are more natural public performers than others; personally I find it quite strange giving interviews. But everyone has parts of their job that they like more than others. You can't complain if you get to do what you love doing most of the time, can you?

I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel.