I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.

Africans need to be kicked, that's the only thing they understand.

Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will - with luck - come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise

People come and go all the time; the world has always been in movement.

Writers should provoke disagreement.

A cat only has itself.