The last page of [Lincoln in the Bardo] - without giving too much away - involves somebody entering somebody else. Not in a sexual way. But it says one of the simplest things you could ever say, which is that we must try and be inside each other. We must have some kind of feeling for each other and enter into each other's experience.

Without the balancing context of everyday life, all you have is the news, and news by its nature is generally bad.

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

This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living.

People don't settle for people. They resolve to be with them. It takes faith. You draw a circle in the sand and agree to stand in it and believe in it.

The future's another country, man... And I still ain't got a passport.

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.