All novels attempt to cut neural routes through the brain, to convince us that down this road the true future of the novel lies.

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

I'm a writer who never writes about sex. It's so far from my own fictional world.

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

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's gotten to a point where everybody is concerned about their rights and nobody is concerned about their duties.

The really heroic thing about Nick Hornby is that he lives in north London and rarely leaves it... Every English writer needs their corner that is forever England - but only a few brave men choose to make that corner Highbury.