I think it's really boring, from the point of view of the novelist, to write about yourself. Tedious. But that's very hard to explain to people who really don't believe in the possibility of invention.

What I find really attractive is something that's going to be a little dangerous. Something that might get me into trouble; you know, you turn up in London and you've just rewritten Dickens. And, of course, then you think, 'What have I done?

My greatest pleasure is to invent. My continual mad ambition is to make something true and beautiful that never existed in the world before.

Writers, at least writers of fiction, are always full of anxiety and worry.

I thought I would be an organic chemist. I went off to university, and when I couldn't understand the chemistry lectures I decided that I would be a zoologist, because zoologists seemed like life-loving people.

Swimming always cleans your soul

Nostalgia is something we think of as fuzzy. But it's pain. Pain concerning the past.