I didn't write anything until I was well over 30.

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.

I'm not a historian but I can get interested - obsessively interested - with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the very recent past.

I've always been fascinated by the operation of memory - the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence.

People die, but money never does.

I didn't think I had anything particular to say, but I thought I might have something to say to children.

If people don't read, that's their choice; a lifelong book habit may itself be some sort of affliction.