Can't a rapper insist, like other artists, on a fictional reality, in which he is somehow still on the corner, despite occupying the penthouse suite?

It seems to me now that the deep structures [in writing] are often subconscious and set in childhood.

Those beliefs about the essential goodness or beauty of the world are fundamentally paper-thin bullshit. There's not an essential belief that isn't a contingent belief. It could all be destroyed in a second, at any second. And I have an issue with that.

I wrote 'White Teeth' in the late nineties. I didn't really feel trepidatious about it. It was a different time.

I remember so clearly, in the early days, if I had to do a piece of press, they'd phone for me and say, 'Oh, we're going to bring hair and makeup, it'll take about five hours.' And I said, 'Well, if it was Ian McEwan, would it take about five hours? Would there be hair and makeup? Cause if that's not the case, then don't bring the hair and makeup.' So, it's fascinating that they just assume: it's a young woman, she must want to be photographed for five hours. She must have nothing better to do than delight in trying on all your shoes. But it's not the case.

Fate is a quantity very much like TV: an unstoppable narrative, written, produced and directed by somebody else.

'A reality shaped around your own desires' - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.