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

The writer I feel the most affinity with - you said you felt my books are 19th century novels, I think they're 18th century novels - is Fielding, Henry Fielding, he's the guy who does it for me.

I think it's also the case that I'm not as widely travelled, or as well-educated in history, as most of the other novelists I meet: so I have to write about my own country, at the present time, because it's more or less all I know about!

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 relationships with my translators - I don't know whether that's a coincidence, or if there's something to be learned from it.

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.

But we are entitled to look for continuity in politics.

Luckily, in my case, I have managed, by writing, to do the one thing that I always wanted to do.

Thatcherism has become bigger than she ever was.

I became quite taken over by Johnson's personality at some points while writing the biography, and since I went straight on to The Closed Circle afterwards, I did sometimes feel I could hear him whispering in my ear while I was working on it.

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

They were written in the early '90s when I was strapped for cash.

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

But you can try to read books at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons.

It's only a drawback in the States, where most people seem to have no real interest in other countries and the notion of a novel which might offer insight into life in the UK doesn't seem to appeal very widely.

Contemporary Britain seems an endlessly fascinating place to me - but if I knew a little bit more about other places, and other times, maybe it wouldn't.

As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic.

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's too cynical, too knowing, too ironic, too empty of real value and meaning.

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

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

My only regret is that I signed away the world rights and in America they've been far and away my most successful books, but I never saw a cent from any of it.

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

But I have always - ever since The Accidental Woman - written novels about individuals attempting to make choices in the context of situations over which they have no control.

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

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

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

As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off was my wife's money and little bits I was picking up for journalism.

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

We aim in the domain of politics at republicanism; in the domain of economics at socialism; in the domain of what is today called religion, at atheism.

I have come to realize that Jesse Helms stands for everything in politics that is anathema to me.

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

Hope springs eternal, even in politics.

Politics is about winning. If you don't win, you don't get to put your principles into practice. Therefore, find a way to win, or sit the battle out.

I don't think at my age... you can start ruling people out in politics.

The new generation of Labour is different. Different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics.

The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought.

A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people's lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.

The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.

Politics is the enemy of the imagination.

In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.

Even if we don't know it or aren't aware of it, politics and philosophy are really what make our up lives.

So begins a question which has of late become more and more urgent: what is the relation of aesthetics to politics?

The Olympics are coming... and it's a big problem in American politics, because the problem with holding the Olympics this fall is that we're all going to be focused on the Olympics, and it makes that window of opportunity for Gore to win the election that much smaller.

A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.

Politics is too partisan, and sometimes patriotism is cast aside. Patriotism is honor and love of your country and your brothers and sisters. With politics I get the impression that it's all about what's good for the party and not necessarily what's good for the country.

I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.