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" Novelists have to be adept at controlling the flow of information, and, most crucially, they have to be in charge of the narrative. "

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" I often don't read reviews. "

" What is it precisely, that feeling of 'returning' from a poem? Something is lighter, softer, larger - then it fades, but never completely. "

" Politics is the enemy of the 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 don't believe there's any inherent darkness at the center of religion at all. I think religion actually is a morally neutral force. "

" How often one reads a contemporary full-length novel and thinks quietly, mutinously, that it would have worked out better at half or a third the length. "

" 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. "

" We overvalue the arts in relation to the sciences. "

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

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

" I don't hold grudges. "

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

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

" I think of novels in architectural terms. You have to enter at the gate, and this gate must be constructed in such a way that the reader has immediate confidence in the strength of the building. "

" My parents were keen for me to have the education they themselves never had. They weren't able to guide me towards particular books, but they encouraged me to read, which I did, randomly and compulsively. "

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

" I put it to you that there are no British poets, there are no British novelists. I have heard myself described as one, but I think really I'm an English novelist; there are Scottish poets and Scottish novelists. "

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

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

" What I've discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours, and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate. You can't really run a two-hour opera round some muted murmuring. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" It is not the first duty of the novelist to provide blueprints for insurrection, or uplifting tales of successful resistance for the benefit of the opposition. The naming of what is there is what is important. "

" Some people are tied to five hundred words a day, six days a week. I'm a hesitater. "

" 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. "