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

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.

I like Anastacia's version of Love is Alive best.

The chance to do it over again is called now.

No American should live in fear of going to work or sending their kids to school. Let's end the fear. Let's enforce existing gun laws.

I didn't write this song. Someone was talking in a room. I just wrote down everything they said.

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless, is not merely unfortunate, but almost disqualified for life.

Listen, global warming is a real problem, but it' s not the end of the world. A 30-centimetre sea level rise is just not going to bring the world to a standstill, just like it didn't over the last 150 years.

I'm not interested in creating a book that is read once and then placed on the shelf and forgotten.

Nothing, literally nothing, makes me feel like I'm back to my body more than Pilates.

I got to work alongside Alexandra Shipp, who plays Storm in 'X-Men: Apocalypse', so that was really cool for me.

Metal isnt necessarily aggressive. Theres metal thats contemplative theres metal thats sad and theres metal thats exuberant. No genre is limited in what it can express.

There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.

Cats have a scam going - you buy the food, they eat the food, they go away; that's the deal.

It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.

Give energy, and mental exertion will always have attraction enough.

Determine to do some thinking for yourself. Dont live entirely upon the thoughts of others. Dont be an automaton.

The ebulliently sharp mind of 'White Christmas' director Walter Bobbie made me tremble and strive in the same breath. The deceptively 'simple' dialogue of David Ives, asking every actor to just. say. it. Float it on the breeze; it doesn't need 'explanation,' just energy and truth.

Steroids is now just a word that the lazy and ignorant use to describe any guy or girl that has more muscle or strength and dedicated than them.

In an age of never-ending health fads, it's comforting to learn that one of the healthiest activities you can do has existed for millennia. It's called reading. Yes, books are not just entertaining or educational: they can also improve your mental health.

Enter politics, and you enter the glass house; there are no secrets and no places to hide.

In my head, scenes are shot from certain angles; there are camera pans, all of that kind of stuff. Converting those visuals to comic format was mostly a matter of adapting them to the rhythm of paneling.

Once you accept, truly accept, that stuff will happen to you and there is nothing you can do about it, stress miraculously leaves your life.

Chanel is here forever. She changed fashion, she changed culture, and she changed how people dress.