In truth, even if they have an imperfect insight into their own methods, I still slightly mistrust writers of fiction who are assured literary critics; it makes me suspect that they favour the word over the world it should describe. Such scribes fall victim too easily to the solecism of equating style with morality.

Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.

As far as I can see, the history of experimental art in the twentieth century is intimately bound up with the experience of intoxification.

For myself, I haven't been content to carry on producing books that merely strain against the conventions - as I've grown older, and realised that there aren't that many books left for me to write, so I've become determined that they should be the fictive equivalent of ripping the damn corset off altogether and chucking it on the fire.

So I was smacked up on the Prime Minister's jet – big deal.

Whatever respect photography may once have deserved is now superfluous in view of its own superfluity.

There's a flip side to having prominent public intellectuals, which is that they start meddling in politics and often with quite disastrous results.