Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

As a child I knew almost nothing, nothing beyond what I had picked up in my grandmother's house. All children, I suppose, come into the world like that, not knowing who they are.

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

I could meet dreadful people and end up seeing the world through their eyes, seeing their frailties, their needs.

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

The melancholy thing about the world is that it is full of stupid people; and the world is run for the benefit of the stupid and common.

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