Iris Murdoch did influence my early novels very much, and influence is never entirely good.

I very much dislike the intolerance and moralism of many Christians, and feel more sympathy with Honest Doubters than with them.

If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year. I don't manage nearly that... but I have published slightly too much recently.

I don't think you can tell the objective truth about a person. That's why people write novels.

If you read about Mussolini or Stalin or some of these other great monsters of history, they were at it all the time, that they were getting up in the morning very early. They were physically very active. They didn't eat lunch.

The scribbler's life is never done.