I'm not sure if you're the person for me any more.

I was thinking about the generation before us, like John Barth and all of those pomo dudes who had that idea of, instead of hiding the structure and making it look organic and natural, we're going to put the structure on the outside. But most of the time, at least for me, all I could attend to [in Swing Time] was that act of structural self-consciousness.

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

The golden age of Luncheon Vouchers ended ten yearsago. For ten years Mickey had been saying, "The goldenage of Luncheon Vouchers is over." And that's what Archieloved about O'Connell's. Everything was remembered,nothing was lost. History was never revised orreinterpreted, adapted or whitewashed. It was as solid andas simple as the encrusted egg on the clock.

Other people’s words are so important. And then without warning they stop being important, along with all those words of yours that their words prompted you to write. Much of the excitement of a new novel lies in the repudiation of the one written before. Other people’s words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you’re going.

It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.

I don't ask myself what did I live for, said Carlene strongly. That is a man's question. I ask whom did I live for.