But surely to tell these tall tales and others like them would be to spread the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect.

Oh, I know that. You know me, baby, I cannot be broken. Takes a giant to snap me in half.

English fiction was something I loved growing up, and it changed my life - it changed the trajectory of my life.

It's a funny thing about rap, that when you say 'I' into the microphone, it's like a public confession. It's very strange.

It's not in good taste to have talking ghosts in a grown-up novel.

I used to take that God's-eye view as a comfort when I was a child. I'd think, "Well, we couldn't find the world meaningful at all if it weren't for death." Of course, that is the smuggest and most intolerable of all perspectives because I'm not suffering from the death or the pain.

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