I Spent Ages Figuring Out Things Like

When We Lost Something Precious, And We'd Looked And Looked And Still Couldn't Find It, Then We Didn't Have To Be Completely Heartbroken. We Still Had That Last Bit Of Comfort, Thinking One Day, When We Grow Up, And We Were Free To Travel Around The Counry, We Would Always Go And Find It In Norfolk...and That's Why Years And Years Later, That Day Tommy And I Found Another Copy Of That Lost Tape Of Mine In A Town On The Norfolk Coast, We Didn't Just Think It Pretty Funny; We Both Felt Deep Down Some Tug, Some Old Wish To Believe Again In Something That Was Once Close To Our Hearts.

After All, When We Were Children, When Things Went Wrong, There Wasn’t Much We Could Do To Help Put It Right. But Now We’re Adults, Now We Can. That’s The Thing, You See? Look At Us, Akira. After All This Time, We Can Finally Put Things Right. Remember, Old Chap, How We Used To Play Those Games? Over And Over? How We Used To Pretend We Were Detectives Searching For My Father? Now We’re Grown, We Can At Last Put Things Right.

People Aren't Quite Sure What It Means When A Book Is A Booker Prize Winner. They're Not Quite Sure What Is Being Recommended, What Literary Values It Stands For, Because Every Year It Stands For Something Different.

There Is Certainly A Satisfaction And Dignity To Be Gained In Coming To Terms With The Mistakes One Has Made In The Course Of One’s Life

I Still Have A Suspicion Of Charity And Think The State Has A Role To Play In Many Areas. And Although For Most Of The Years Since I Have Been A Rather Privileged Writer, I Identify More Closely Than Perhaps I Should With Those Social Workers. Had I Not Become A Writer That Would Have Been Me. Lots Of Our Friends Are Still In That World And I Do Feel Part Of That Generation Of People Who Were Rather Idealistic In The 70s And Became Disillusioned In The 80s. Not Just About Social Services Issues, But The World.