If you give a writer a pile of blank paper and say you can write anything you like on any subject you want at any length you want, you will probably never get anything at all, whereas if you have 900 words to write, and it's fiction that is somehow op-ed fiction, and it needs to tie in with Halloween . . . okay, those are my constraints, that's where I now need to start building something.

The only people I ever get irritated with are the ones who announce, using my Twitter handle, that they are no longer following me and why.

I found English to be a sort of Thomas Hardy aversion therapy.

Being brave doesn't mean you aren't scared. Being brave means you are scared, really scared, badly scared, and you do the right thing anyway.

And because nobody's done it before, they haven't made up rules to stop anyone doing that again, yet.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly.