In any authoritarian society, the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside, he will come after you. This is equally true of Sovietism, of China and of Iran, and in our time it has happened a lot in Islam. The point is that it's worse when the authoritarianism is supported by something supernatural.

When I'm writing a book, sentence by sentence, I'm not thinking theoretically. I'm just trying to work out the story from inside the characters I've got.

Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable.

A mature society understands that at the heart of democracy is argument.

I think anyone who knows me at all knows that I have been a movie addict all my life. I grew up in a city obsessed by cinema and where there are cinemas on every street corner.

If you give in to the threat of violence, if you give in to bullying, what you know is that there will be more bullying. There will not be less bullying. If you appease the bully, you make sure that he will bully you some more. Not less. It doesn't solve the problem. It makes the problem worse.

As I look back, I feel a touch of pride at my younger self's dedication to literature, which gave him the strength of mind to resist the blandishments of the enemies of promise. The sirens of ad-land sang sweetly and seductively, but I thought of Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of his ship, and somehow stayed on course.