Objectivity is just male subjectivity..

As soon as you start writing about how human beings interact with each other socially, you're into politics, aren't you?.

Some people don't realize that a straight 'No' can be the kindest answer in the world..

The biggest markets for my books outside the UK are France and Italy, and those are the two countries where I also have the closest personal relation….

We say, 'Shall we meet for a drink?', as though drinking were the main end of the appointment, and the matter of company only incidental, we are so s….

Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem..

For many weeks after [my wife] died, I could not get used to the feeling of coldness and lifelessness on her side of the bed - and it was even worse ….

The plain fact is that she never really liked me, and never wanted me. I had been a mistake; and that, to some extent, is what I remain in my own eye….

Sometimes I feel that I am destined always to be offstage whenever the main action occurs. That God has made me the victim of some cosmic practical j….

I like the rain before it falls. of course there is no such thing, she said. That's why it's my favorite. Something can still make you happy, can't i….

You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it..

Writers never feel comfortable having labels attached to them, however accurate they are..

But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels..

I was mainly in a state of nervousness while I wrote it - nervousness that it was far bigger and more complicated than anything Id attempted before, ….

It seems to me that you would have to write a novel on a very small, intimate scale for it not to become political..

Well, I like the rain before it falls..

Revisionist historians are about to get their hands on the Thatcher years, shes probably going to be looked at again because she feels far enough awa….

I'm one of those unlucky people who had a happy childhood..

The more melancholy side of my literary personality is much in tune with BS Johnson's..

As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting….

I live a perfectly happy and comfortable life in Blair's Britain, but I can't work up much affection for the culture we've created for ourselves: it'….