I'm not so interested any more in how a great deal of science fiction goes. It goes into things like Star Wars and Star Trek which all go excellent in their own way.

Action isn’t my forte. I’m an expert on contemplation and mild regret.

I don't finish every story, but I probably write and send out three out of five of them.

So I wrote what I hoped would be science fiction, I was not at all sure if what I wrote would be acceptable even. But I don't say that I consciously wrote with humour. Humour is a part of you that comes out.

I'm quite influenced in this by one of my heroes, Montaigne, who thought a man's real task was to render as honest an account of himself as he could.

Ethical and questions of philosophy interest me a great deal.

The British audience was very important to me. I have always looked away from American to non-American audiences and so this was important.