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.

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.

My editor, Robin Robertson, is one of this country's finest poets, so I listen to him when he offers advice.

It's so much easier to know who you are when there aren't a thousand people telling you who they think you are.

There is a false assumption about the Parti Quebecois that we don't know anything about the economy... Well that's a myth.

One is lucky to be born in a place where no one is doing it, because then you can say, 'Well, obviously I can write better than everyone else in high school.' You have no idea of the competition.

The last time somebody said, 'I find I can write much better with a word processor.', I replied, 'They used to say the same thing about drugs.'

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

I know people who are incredibly successful who still dress the way they did when they were 18, just because they still think that's how they look good.

I'm not ambitious. I don't want to get anywhere, I don't want anything more. I sometimes think that for me that is the real freedom, that I don't want anything. I don't want money or prizes. I want people to know that a war is going to be fought.

My sole ambition is to rid Mexico of the class that has oppressed her and given the people a chance to know what real liberty means. And if I could bring that about today by giving up my life, I would do it gladly.

There will always be a business cycle, and white-collar workers will get hit in the next recession like they always do in recessions.

I'm a science fiction geek from birth - that's just who I am.

Many nations are like rebellious teenagers who try to figure out just how many times they can kick us in the teeth while still taking our money.

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

When you are in love and you get hurt its like a cut it will heal but there will always be a scar.

I've never sat down and thought about the difference between plot and theme. To me, that's never been important.

I've had my heart broken, and it's not fun. But I'd rather have my heart broken than break someone else's heart.

If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities.

Electroclash is good because it's stayed underground.

I have not proved that the universe is, in fact, a digital computer and that it's capable of performing universal computation, but it's plausible that it is.

I love to see people blossom.

The Native American side was tragic. It's just unbelievable what has happened to them.