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.

Time is how you spend your love.

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.

Writing is my way of expressing - and thereby eliminating - all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.

The world is now multicultural the same way the world is round. It's not a selling point, it's not a 'quirky' feature, it's not a cynical marketing ploy, it's not an artistic statement, it's not even a plot device. It's a fact, like seedless grapes.

The choices a writer makes within a tradition - preferring Milton to Moliere, caring for Barth over Barthelme - constitute some of the most personal information we can have about him.

I'm most honest about writing when I'm talking to family or friends, not to newspapers.