A new car is not going to change your life.

I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who absolutely demands to be read a second, third, and fourth time. I admire her great courage in leaving so much unsaid and asking the reader to really engage her brain.

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?

She touched his hand for the last time. "Oh, Karim, that we have already done. But always there was a problem between us. How can I explain? I wasn't me, and you weren't you. From the very beginning to the very end, we didn't see things. What we did--we made each other up." p. 382

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.

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.

I wish I got a lie-in on Saturday mornings but I never do.