World War III will be triggered off not by suppressed nationalists seeking political independence, as happened the first time around when the Serbs at Sarajevo shot the heir to the Austrian throne, but by some semiliterate, whacked-out "loner" who lobs a rocket into a nuclear arsenal in order to impress Brooke Shields.

People are unjust to anger - it can be enlivening and a lot of fun.

There’s no remaking reality... Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes. There’s no other way.

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.

I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.

For discipline is imposed not just on oneself but on those in one's orbit.

We live in an age in which the imagination of the novelist is helpless against what he knows he is going to read in tomorrow's newspaper.