The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form.

The idea that memory is linear is nonsense. What we have in our heads is a collection of frames. As to time itself-can it be linear when all these snatches of other presents exist at once in your mind? A very elusive and tricky concept, time.

We all need a past - that's where our sense of identity comes from.

I'm intrigued by the way in which physical appearance can often direct a person's life; things happen differently for a beautiful woman than for a plain one.

Wars are fought by children. Conceived by their mad demonic elders, and fought by boys.

We make choices but are constantly foiled by happenstance.

I'm now an agnostic but I grew up on the King James version, which I'm eternally grateful for.