The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.

Whenever I have had to write fiction, I've always had to invent a character who roughly has my background.

An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.

You need someone to see what you've done, to read it and to understand it and to appreciate what's gone into it.

It is important not to trust people too much.

All the things that were read to me by my father were stories about things becoming all right.

I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people's lands.