People Tend To Think Of Their Lives

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.

I Think I Now Understand Why It Is That The Young Are So Very Nostalgic. They Have So Little By Way Of Personal History That They Polish It Up And Make It Shine Like A Treasured Heirloom.

Political Activists Of All Stripes Are Usually A Wacky Bunch, And Never More So Than In A System Like Britain's, Where Power Is Effected Via The Quiescence Of The Electorate As Much As Its Convictions.

You Know That Sickening Feeling Of Inadequacy And Over-exposure You Feel When You Look Upon Your Own Empurpled Prose? Relax Into The Awareness That This Ghastly Sensation Will Never, Ever Leave You, No Matter How Successful And Publicly Lauded You Become. It Is Intrinsic To The Real Business Of Writing And Should Be Cherished.

I'm Very Happy For Whatever Plaudits Might Come The Way Of My Work, But I Never Ever Sit Down To Write X With Y In View - Whether It's A Reader, A Prize Or A Sale.