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" I didn't go to school much, so I taught myself what I knew from reading. "

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" I'm very unhappy when I'm not writing. "

" Sometimes I think what I write is funny in its quiet way. "

" Pleasure resorts are like film stars and royalty... embarrassed by the figures they cut in the fantasies of people who have never met them. "

" There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best. "

" My mother died happily of a stroke in her seventies. "

" Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds. "

" I think a writer's job is to provoke questions. I like to think that if someone's read a book of mine, they've had - I don't know what - the literary equivalent of a shower. Something that would start them thinking in a slightly different way, perhaps. That's what I think writers are for. "

" I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government. "

" Literature is analysis after the event. "

" I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot. "

" In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better. "

" The human race has been telling stories since it began. "

" When there's a war, people get married. "

" When I was bringing up a child, I taught myself to write in very short, concentrated bursts. If I had a weekend, or a week, I'd do unbelievable amounts of work. "

" I have ideas that I will probably never write now. "

" What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better. "

" All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed. "

" I always hated Tony Blair, from the beginning. "

" I have a daughter and two grand-daughters and a great grandson in Africa, in Cape Town. "

" I don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism when writing a story. I am telling a story. "

" I'm compulsive. "

" Some people obtain fame, others deserve it. "

" Whenever I met anyone who knew anything, I would bore them stiff until they told me what they knew. "

" It usually takes me a year to do a book. A year or eighteen months. "

" My mother was a woman who was very frustrated. She had a great deal of ability, and all this energy went into me and my brother. "

" A writer falls in love with an idea and gets carried away. "

" They can't give a Nobel to someone who's dead so I think they were probably thinking they had better give it to me now before I popped off. "

" I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement. "

" What is a hero without love for mankind. "

" It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.' "