I think that thing about the destruction of the world is there all the time, it's there every day when we look out the window.

I have never begun a novel which wasn't going to stretch me further than I had ever stretched before.

I don't need new boots I got bluchers back down home. Eff the effing bluchers I'll buy you new adjectival effing elastic sided boots.

I did not know that history is like a blood stain that keeps on showing on the wall no matter how many new owners take possession, no matter how many times we pint over it.

I think that thing about the destruction of the world is there all the time, it's there every day when we look out the window.

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?

One has to be able to twist and change and distort characters, play with them like clay, so everything fits together. Real people don't permit you to do that.