That's the trouble with you sad-city types: a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it's real.

People would come and threaten them. And they would respond by putting the book in the window. Behind that, the publishers, many of whom were menaced and receiving anonymous phone calls of the very menacing kind and so, almost everybody - not everybody, but almost everybody held the line.

For me, what I've always seen in writers and artists is the courage it takes to make an original work of art. I think the real risks in literature are linguistic and intellectual, and I hope we can highlight those, as well as political courage.

It just requires so much of you, and most of the time you feel dumb.

I'm no friend of Tony Blair's and I consider the Middle East policies of the United States and the UK fatal.

Fundamentalism isn't about religion, it's about power.

I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.