You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it.

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.

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.

It seems to me that you would have to write a novel on a very small, intimate scale for it not to become political.

The continued vitality of our Constitution and the survival of each freedom it protects depend upon the right to vote and the vibrant democracy it affords us. In short, the right to vote underlies each of our other rights.

I would not hesitate to vote for a white person as president if I thought he was the best person for the job.

I'm not involved in politics any more and they're quite right.

Politics and government have been a terrible place to invest; education has been a terrible place to invest, but that is because the entrenched interests make it a terrible place to invest. The way you invest in those sectors is you go against the entrenched interests; you try and disrupt the entrenched interests, not to service them.