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" I do believe in that thing about the reading audience being very important to the formation of the novel at its birth. "
John Lanchester
Birth
Believe
Very
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" One of the things I have noticed about my novels is that they all concern people who can't quite bring themselves to tell the truth about their own lives... I've come to realise that this interest in damaged, untellable stories comes from my parents. "
John Lanchester
Own
Parents
Truth
" A preoccupation with money and, especially, with what money meant was, in our family, an inherited thing. My father's father, Jack, who died before I was born, was very much possessed by the idea that money was freedom. "
John Lanchester
Born
Family
Father
" My mum had this amazing ability to deflect things, and from an early age, I knew what I was not supposed to talk about. "
John Lanchester
Ability
Early
Amazing
" Obviously you can stash money under your mattress, cut down on hazelnut lattes, but in terms of the larger economic frame of our lives, we have very little agency. About one of the only things you can do is understand it. "
John Lanchester
You
Frame
Money
" I write non-fiction quicker, and I write it on a computer. Fiction I write longhand, and that helps make it clear that it comes from a slightly different part of the brain, I think. "
John Lanchester
Write
Think
Different
" Money isn't automatically freedom. You need to look carefully at what you're doing to earn the money before you can conclude that you are, in practice, free. This is a cost-benefit analysis we should all perform on our own lives. "
John Lanchester
Look
Practice
Free
" For a while, I had a rule of no smartphone in bed, but now I've upgraded to no smartphone in the bedroom. The fact that we need rules shows how much these things have invaded our lives. "
John Lanchester
Now
Bed
Bedroom
" When I first travelled to New York in 1982 on a summer holiday as a student, I remember thinking how exciting it was, how energising it felt, and also how it felt dangerous - it was a place where you could make a wrong turn, either geographically or just in a human interaction, and suddenly find yourself in trouble. "
John Lanchester
Yourself
Thinking
New York
" In my view, a review should be like talking to a friend who's just asked you, 'What was it like?' You're giving a verdict on an experience, not trying for a definitive last judgment. "
John Lanchester
Giving
Experience
You
" Hospitality is central to the restaurant business, yet it's a hard idea to define precisely. Mostly, it involves being nice to people and making them feel welcome. You notice it when it's there, and you particularly notice it when it isn't. A single significant lapse in this area can be your dominant impression of an entire meal. "
John Lanchester
Nice
You
Welcome
" Often, in horror films, the single most effective device for building a sense of scariness is the soundtrack: the clanking of chains, the groaning of off-stage ghouls, the unmistakable sound of a cannibal rustic firing up a chainsaw. "
John Lanchester
Building
Sound
Horror
" 'The Big Short' is, among other things, a blistering, detailed indictment of the way Wall Street does business, and its particular villains are the investment banks. "
John Lanchester
Way
Street
Short
" The early-'80s recession was good for good restaurants, not least because it put bad ones out of business. "
John Lanchester
Recession
Bad
Because
" Some things get clearer as you look back on them. "
John Lanchester
Things
Look
Some
" Once I've properly finished a book, my ideal state of being would be to never think about it again. But with 'Capital,' I felt I'd spent so much time with the characters that they were very, very real, and I definitely had a sense of loss about leaving them behind in a way I've not quite had before. "
John Lanchester
Loss
Book
Leaving
" The first ATM in Hong Kong was actually at the foot of the bank. I remember my father using it. And I find it absolutely terrifying that - something about the way the machine just kind of coughed up money with no difficulty. "
John Lanchester
Father
Money
Remember
" Dad was a very, very principled man, and he hated any kind of story where the baddies get away with it. "
John Lanchester
Hated
Away
Where
" The economics of setting up a new restaurant are scary in good times and terrifying in bad ones. "
John Lanchester
Economics
Good Times
Restaurant
" The Internet makes writing about restaurants easier and more interesting in quite a few ways, one of the main ones being to do with the mundane business of checking what's on the menu. "
John Lanchester
Internet
Writing
Business
" I love London in the rare parts of the year when it's quiet, and no time is more reliably quiet than the week between Christmas and New Year. "
John Lanchester
Week
Christmas
Love
" Because the Spanish eat so crazily late - anybody who's been to Spain has had the experience of sitting down at 9:30 P.M. to find themselves the first customer in the restaurant - they tend to favour an early-evening drink and a nibble to keep them going. "
John Lanchester
Experience
Late
Restaurant
" Security is a complicated idea and one with an immense potential to trap us - that was one lesson I learnt from my father. "
John Lanchester
Potential
Lesson
Father
" Why should the idea of Western liberal democracy automatically imply unregulated free-market capitalism? "
John Lanchester
Why
Capitalism
Liberal
" I grew up in Hong Kong, and London used to seem very gray: the sky was gray, the buildings were gray, the food was incredibly gray - the food had, like, new kinds of grayness specially invented for it. "
John Lanchester
Sky
Buildings
Food
" One of the main reasons that the landscape of financial stuff in America is different is that gambling is illegal there. So there's a kind of sport-like aspect to the American coverage of finance. "
John Lanchester
Financial
Finance
America
" The deconstructed, postmodern pizza has been with us for ages, and the fact is that pretty much every ingredient in the world has been used as a pizza topping and liked by somebody, somewhere. "
John Lanchester
World
Pretty
Somewhere
" I don't think quantitative easing is deliberately misleading, but I do think it's suspiciously bland and reassuring. It doesn't sound like anything big, experimental, scary and strange - which is what many economists think it is. "
John Lanchester
Sound
Think
Big
" My standard Nando's order is a chicken breast burger served 'medium,' which is still fairly spicy. "
John Lanchester
Standard
Order
Chicken
" I'd like to pretend to be all Olympian and above it, as if this is a phenomenon I'm observing from a great height, nothing to do with my own behavior at all - but the fact is I'm absolutely one of those people in the cafe staring at my phone. "
John Lanchester
Phone
Nothing
People
" If we are going to remake society in the image of the fight against terrorism and put that secret fight at the heart of our democratic order - which is the way we're heading - we need to discuss it, and in public. "
John Lanchester
Society
Terrorism
Fight