All Quotes

The writing life is essentially one of solitary confinement - if you can't deal with this, you needn't apply. ”

Live life and write about life. Of the making of many books there is indeed no end, but there are more than enough books about books. ”

As the render is to the building, and the blueprint to the machine, so sport is to social existence. ”

What fiction offers us is an intimacy shorn of the messy contingencies of human existence - gender, race, class or age. Those moments of transcendence when we exclaim 'You know exactly what I mean!' depend for much of their force on the anonymous character of the intimacy between writer and reader. ”

Sometimes, when I hear people without experience of addiction blame addicts for their behaviour, I feel like saying to them: 'You simply don't understand - how can a child be held responsible for doing such a dreadful thing to himself?' But then again, at other times I have to acknowledge: it was done wilfully. ”

I do have a fantasy life in which I can grout bathrooms - but not for a living. ”

I can't remember who it was who advocated that you should march with the left and dine with the right but I've often concurred, taking the view that I personify the great tolerance of Britain by consenting to being regally entertained. Besides, there is a degree of truth in the view that while the left are worthier, the right are wittier. ”

Nowadays, my mood ungoverned, I'm free to think the most outrageous things, such as: might it not be a good idea to insist that drug companies give their preparations names that tell the user what they really do? ”

As a writer, I'm not convinced that we are the best equipped to understand how we go about the business of literary production. ”

I write because I feel driven to write. I write from a sense of inner necessity. I don't write for anything other than that. ”