For me, a novel is always the result of my attempt to impose myself on raw circumstances. It is a concrete form of lived experience.

My children are living, thinking human beings. It isn't in my power to regret them, for they belong to themselves.

I have no sense of a model or predecessor when I write a memoir: For me, the form exists as a method of processing material that retains too many connections to life to be approached strictly and aesthetically. A memoir is a risk, a one-off, a bastard child.

Having your second child, in case you were wondering, is a lot harder than having your first, except for those people who find it easier. I'm afraid I don't have the latest figures to confirm this.

Society in the English countryside is still strangely, quaintly divided. If black comedy and a certain type of social commentary are what you want, I think English rural communities offer quite a lot of material.

That's writing for you: when you make space for passion, it doesn't turn up.

The British have always made terrible parents.