I like to think that I have no single view nor any single situation that I think things arrive from. I try to give examples of what I think are interesting questions for me.

A lot of us don't want to be quite that serious about world problems. Our life is there to enjoy, not to be an eternal dissident, eternally unhappy with how things are and with the state of mankind.

I'm not too fond of the hard work and the constant battle with self-doubt that goes on when I write, but I figure that's part of the territory.

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

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.

A novel is often a longer process in handling self-doubt.

I think it can be quite impossible to think well of yourself, so I prefer not to think about that too much. But I am very pleased, obviously.