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" I rarely ever put my head above the rampart and see where this big lumbering behemoth called 'global literature' is going. "

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" Every relationship has its own language. It takes a long time to evolve and read one another. Just as it's true for people, it's also true on a national or cultural level. "

" I'm certainly a plot and character man. Themes, structure, style - they're valid components of a novel and you can't complete the book without them. But I think what propels me as a reader is plot and character. "

" Writers are so used to books being optioned and then the movie never happens. "

" Sometimes I think that creativity is a matter of seeing, or stumbling over, unobvious similarities between things - like composing a fresh metaphor, but on a more complex scale. "

" When I was about 14, in about 1984, I decided to become a great poet. Faber & Faber was going to publish me, and when Ted Hughes read my first anthology he would invite me to Yorkshire for meat pies and mentorship. "

" Japanese food makes me feel particularly good. "

" There's a disease that young writers are susceptible to, which is, I will do this because I can - hubris, I suppose - without stopping to work out why. "

" You can't be a part-time Richard Dawkins. "

" I love HBO productions, actually, like 'The Wire.' "

" I think it's natural for youth to be drawn to newness: The world is still new for them. "

" I think all writers of my age who are brought up on films probably by the age of 16 have seen many more films than they have read classics of literature. We can't help but be influenced by film. Film has got some great tricks that it's taught writers. "

" I don't have problems starting writing. I have problems stopping. I'm one of the last dads to arrive at school to collect the kids, because I want to get this paragraph just right. "

" It's true that stammerers can become more adept at sentence construction. "

" If the human condition were the periodic table, maybe love would be hydrogen at No. 1. Death would be helium at No. 2. Power, I reckon, would be where oxygen is. "

" A life can get knocked into a new orbit by a car crash, a lottery win or just a bleary-eyed consultant giving bad news in a calm voice. "

" I still haven't quite got used to eating live fish. "

" Many children are natural fantasists, I think, perhaps because their imaginations have yet to be clobbered into submission by experience. "

" I think words operate like musical notes that the eyeball hears. "

" Write something every single day, even if it's just three lines. And it doesn't matter if it's any good - just write something every day. "

" Loneliness is an integral part of travelling. I used to think it was the downside to travelling, but now I realise it is a necessary educative part of it to be embraced. "

" False modesty can be worse than arrogance. "

" Perhaps all human interaction is about wanting and getting. "

" Your environment affects you wherever you are. "

" In the 1970s and 1980s there was so little decent fiction for young people, but we're now in a golden age that shows no sign of fading. Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket are only three of the best known among a good number of equals. "

" When you're out of your own cultural context you have conversations with yourself that you just don't have at any other point in your life. When you're in a hotel room on the border between India and Nepal you can really discover things about yourself. "

" 'Y' is about the weakest letter of all. 'Y' can't make up its mind if it's a vowel or a consonant, can it? "

" Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again. "

" I think the story is the most ancient form of human entertainment. "

" I can't bear living in this huge beautiful world and not try to imitate it as best I can. "

" I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels. "