When I first started writing in my early 20s it was literary criticism for a very eccentric magazine called Books And Bookmen, which allowed me to write, more or less anything.

I like extremely effeminate dogs like terriers or schnauzers. I make an exception for giant schnauzers and big poodles. Basically, I like dogs which can be dyed day-glo colours.

You always have to find something to say about the subject and in seven cases out of ten there is nothing to say.

I'm not against architecture per se, I'm just against bad architecture.

I like looking at the countryside as well as anyone... a little countryside goes a long way, but it's almost like the DNA of a civilisation is in its cities.

I think television is a medium which has the potential to do great things but has been traduced by these... terrible people who rise through the ranks.

I genuinely find it difficult to think of places that I'd never want to see again. It might be because part of my career has been concerned with writing about topography.

The only bright feature of cultural relativism's triumph is that it has become establishment orthodoxy and will thus one day be derided, resisted and overthrown.

I do make myself be interested in places in a way that I don't make myself be interested in people.

When I started writing fiction it always seemed in retrospect (I didn't realise at the time) that it was always caused by environments rather than by incidents and characters.

If you have slightly pathological interest in all the components of places, it forces you to engage with them in a way that perhaps otherwise you wouldn't, and that's the only way I can put it.

The greatest adventure is to have no fear for the blaze that lies ahead.

When the police willfully break the law on video and then deny the event in writing, you know that you are dealing with a blatantly corrupt group of people.

What would your prayers look like if you believed that the cross really was the measure of God's compassion for someone?

Suffering isn't ennobling recovery is.

She said she married an architect, who kept her warm and safe and dry. She would like to say she loved the man, but she didn't like to lie.

By His trials, God means to purify us, to take away all our self-confidence, and our trust in each other, and bring us into implicit, humble trust in Himself.

It's not that women don't feel things, we do. We fall in love, we get our hearts broken, we're disappointed and sad, but we've also been taught that you must always have your pride. Above all.

Our present predicament comes from the fact that running the economy on blood is no longer fashionable. We can't end this depression with another war.

That I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life.

A work of art works because it is true, not because it is real.