Writing Skinny Chris was a very odd process – it felt like I had brought back to life a dead man and then killed him again.

All the best writers take risks, offend people often and say fuck you to the critics.

It’s much harder to twist the charitable arm of a lottery winner compared to that of a man at his lowest ebb. It sounds like the wrong way round at first, but when you really put your nut to it, people are more frightened of losing the big shit than of having fuck all to begin with and losing a bit of that.

Katie soon learned there was a problem with hope.

I have a very addictive personality. If it isn’t women, it’s money. If it isn’t money, it’s speeding. And if it isn’t speeding, it’s women. I also like expensive video consoles where I can punch, kick, screw, shoot and drive legally all night anywhere I fucking well want to.

On some days she was able to see both sun and moon at the same time. Like feuding cousins, they hung in two corners of the vast world-ceiling refusing to look at one another. The moon was always harder to spot and more faded, but it was there if you looked, as many things were.