Rarely do pens go dry in restaurants.

People don't like to read text on computer screens (and reading a lot of text on iPod screens gets very tiring very soon, just about as soon as running out of battery power).

You can register a political objection in a number of ways.

It's troubling to see how often Winston Churchill is a proponent of massive programs that are really aimed at civilians - starvation blockades and chemical warfare stockpiles and so on.

Writing has to do with truth-telling. When you're writing, let's say, an essay for a magazine, you try to tell the truth at every moment. You do your best to quote people accurately and get everything right. Writing a novel is a break from that: freedom. When you're writing a novel, you are in charge; you can beef things up.

I'm a sucker for interiors and carefully, beautifully filmed people sitting in a big room. My appetites are simple.

Spoon the sauce over the ice cream. It will harden. This is what you have been working for.