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" In my experience an appreciative letter from a fellow writer means a lot. "

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" I wouldn't mind being the lead guitarist in an incredibly successful rock band. However, I don't play the guitar. "

" I've yet to meet somebody who said, 'Your stories are so revolting I couldn't read them.' "

" The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject. "

" Not being boring is quite a challenge. "

" When I began I thought that literature was contained within a bubble that somehow floated above the world commented upon by newspapers. But I became more and more interested in trying to include some of that world within my work. "

" I actually find novels that are determined to be funny at every turn quite oppressive. "

" It's good to get your hands dirty a bit and to test how you see things at a given point. And it's very pleasing after writing something like 'Atonement' or 'On Chesil Beach,' which are historical, to get involved in some plausible re-enactment of the here and now. "

" You could say that all novels are spy novels and all novelists are spy masters. "

" True intelligence requires fabulous imagination. "

" It should simply be an empirical matter whether the climate is changing or not and whether we're responsible. But the various sides of the debate have now become so tribal that it's no longer a matter of changing our views as more information comes in. "

" I often don't read reviews. "

" I was an intimate sort of child who never spoke up in groups. I preferred close friends. "

" You can spin stories out of the ways people understand and misunderstand each other. "

" As regards literary culture, it fascinates me that it has been so resilient to the Union. For example, when T.S. Eliot wanted to become poet in these lands, it wasn't as an English poet, it was an Anglian poet he wanted to be. "

" I don't hold grudges. "

" Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a god. "

" Scientists do stand on the shoulders of giants, just as do writers. Conversely, in the arts we do make discoveries. We do refine our tools. So I am arguing with, or at least playing with, the idea that art never improves. "

" If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy. "

" By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage. "

" I always used to deny this, but I guess what I'm really saying is that I was writing to shock... And I dug deep and dredged up all kinds of vile things which fascinated me at the time. "

" You enter a state of controlled passivity, you relax your grip and accept that even if your declared intention is to justify the ways of God to man, you might end up interesting your readers rather more in Satan. "

" One has to have the courage of one's pessimism. "

" My father's drinking was sometimes a problem. And a great deal went unspoken. He was not particularly acute or articulate about the emotions. But he was very affectionate towards me. "

" What reader wants to be told what attitude to strike? "

" A twenty-one-year-old writer is likely to be inhibited by a lack of usable experience. Childhood and adolescence were something I knew. "

" I apologize for being obvious, but every time I watch the curtain come down on even a halfway decent production of a Shakespeare play I feel a little sorrowful that I'll never know the man, or any man of such warm intelligence. "

" I want to live in a place where strangers rush to help someone in distress. "

" Something is missing in our culture. We can't quite celebrate the scientific literary tradition. "

" Reading reviews makes you thin-skinned. It's like waves washing layers off your skin. "

" I don't really believe in evil at all. "