I read 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford again every so often.

You couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t hate at least something. Indeed, perhaps you couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t hate almost everything.

I hate going back over what I've written. It makes me feel physically sick.

If I want to feel as if I'm being sucked down a fathomless gloomy tunnel for hours and hours then I have a complete set of Schopenhauer at home.

I don't have a day job, so I read any time of day.

I'm reasonably good at talking onstage, but actually holding court in a pub is all to do with power dynamics which I don't think has anything to do with fiction.

There's never a bad time to put earplugs in. They're the kind of thing you can reject as a bit lame, but somebody told me to do start wearing earplugs and it turned out to be great advice.

Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least one murder.

The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that isn't funny on some level is quite hard.

I'm very finicky about when I'm in the right mood to write. So most days, I find some excuse not to do anything.

The reason I start a novel is because there's something that excites me and I want to explore it.

When I first heard your voice, my heart leapt in my chest as if it recognized you as its owner from another lifetime.

The day my life changed forever...The day I first saw you.

They are but beggars that can count their worth

After all, you’re only an immortal until someone manages to kill you. After that, you were just long-lived.

Let us never forget the duty, which we have taken upon us

I tried to make the Olympics team in 1956

Those who think the family has had its day should think again.

What time is it on the clock of the world?

To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy.