The Infinities' is a shortish book but densely loaded with Nabokovian slyness, gorgeous imagery, and disturbing insights into what it means to be mortal.

For novelists, sharply drawn moral conflicts are often useful, and even human and personal disasters can be seen as material.

DeLillo has said that he no longer feels a compulsion to write long, compendious books. In his later years, Saul Bellow said something similar. DeLillo, of course, has written very long in the past, notably with the 850-page Underworld (1997), and his story has been America.

If I had been brought up in America, I think I would still have had the same sort of job as a writer.

Yes, I have done a few things like always, worked immensely hard, always respected people, admired good work, and never let success blow my top off; probably this has worked in my favour.

Bare hands grip success better than kid gloves. Be thorough in all things, no matter how small or distasteful! The man who counts his hours and kicks about his salary is a self-elected failure.

The mean pattern of educational and economic achievement within multi-racial countries such as Canada and the United States has increasingly been found to prove valid internationally.

I'd rather have huge success and huge failures than travel in the middle of the road.