He's [Jesus] the most fascinating character in history, really - the character who's made more difference to the world than anyone since him. I daresay that Muslims would say Muhammad was that character, but I think Jesus had a sort of 600-year start on him.

I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read.

Sticks and stones, I'll break yer bones, but names ain't worth a quarrel.

All the stories of the Bible that I know came to me first from my grandfather's lips... He would see stories in everything. He told stories very easily and very generously, so I loved him for that. He was a simple man, a Victorian; he was born in 1890-something. He saw no reason and had never seen any reason to question his Christian faith. His faith was strong and simple and that's it. And I, like his other grandchildren and the children in his parish, sheltered underneath it.

I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.

I don't know where my ideas come from, but I know where they come to. They come to my desk, and if I'm not there, they go away again.

I'm superstitious about the paper that I use, for example. I've written all my novels on a paper of a particular size with lines of a particular distance apart and with two holes in the paper for the folder clip.