Sometimes you get a flash of what you look like to other people.

I don't keep any copies of my books in the house - they go to my mum's flat. I don't like them around.

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

Surely there is something to be said for drawing a circle around our attention and remaining within that circle. But how large should this circle be?

I don't actually believe in the extension of consciousness after death.

Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.

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