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.

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.

Why in God's name should a God be praised if he is only performing his Godly function?

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.

It takes me a long time to get with a landscape. It took me 20 years before I wrote anything about Ibiza, and I haven't written about Oregon yet, although I've been there 20 years - possibly I'm almost due.

Science fiction is very healthy in its form.