I have, I must admit, despised the English countryside for much of my life - despised it and avoided it for its want of danger and adventure.

I have in the past acquired a reputation for concocting non-existent writers and unwritten volumes.

Retiring from writing is to avoid the inevitable bitterness which a writing career is bound to deliver as its end product in almost every case.

I was brought up in a flat in North London - virtually the last building in London, because north of us was countryside all the way to the coast, and south of us was non-stop London for 20 miles.

My mother's career was over at 40 but she was still trying to be everyone's buddy, always smiling for the cameras.

I'm a kind of an entrepreneur.

The career of an esthete was nothing I ever intended.

I think I had a kind of pause for insight in my 20s when I wasn't in a relationship and my career wasn't going the way I wanted it to go. I had time for reflection then.