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" One of the things that all authors of fiction must learn to judge is whether - and in what detail - to describe the face of a character. "

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" Oh, the illusion of choice in the modern world - don't get me started. But don't you agree that the Internet has softened our brains and made us forget that 'choice' used to mean something different from selecting options from menus? "

" My favorite thing in the world is a quiz show, 'University Challenge,' so you can see what kind of sad person I am. "

" I hate to be treated as if I'm invisible. I get incensed when people talk across me or refuse to catch my eye in a restaurant or shop. "

" Do you lend books and DVDs to people? If so, don't you always regret it? All my life I have forced books on to people who have subsequently forgotten all about it. Meanwhile, on my shelves sit many orphaned books loaned to me over the years by trusting, innocent souls - some as long ago as the Seventies. "

" I used to help my dad with a stall selling eggs when I was about 12. People were so hard up they would ask for one egg. But mostly no one came by at all. It was very demoralising. "

" The idea of withholding a massive secret is obviously quite exciting to some people. It is also the basis of much classic drama, of course, from Sophocles onwards. "

" In my worst moments, I think the biggest effect of 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' was to kill the happiness of people who had previously skipped through life, unaware of all the atrocities lurking in the world around them. "

" To some people, the fact that I am not married, or don't have children, would be the reason I have written a book on punctuation. "

" All writers learn this, in time: don't show your work to other people until it's safely finished. Even discussing your unborn book in quite general terms can be such an undermining experience that, afterwards, you give it up and go to live in Guatemala. "

" Texting is a supremely secretive medium of communication - it's like passing a note - and this means we should be very careful what we use it for. "

" I am not against marriage. I lived with someone for 11 years. But we weren't in love, and I thought that was quite important. "

" You don't want to make an enemy of Piers Morgan. "

" Don't pessimism and caution naturally go hand in hand? "

" Texting is a fundamentally sneaky form of communication, which we should despise, but it is such a boon we don't care. We are all sneaks now. "

" Old radio comedy makes me laugh, as well as 'I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue' and comedians like Paul Merton. "

" What I have always liked about Brighton is its impersonality. Since the 18th century, people have come, used the place and gone home again. "

" What one discovers in life, I find, is that one's personality defects don't come and go. "

" After university, I got a job sub-editing and for years I was a literary editor. "

" I do needlepoint from kits. I give them as gifts to people in the form of cushion covers and they are often speechless with horror. "

" Writers and painters alike are in the business of consulting their own imaginations, and stimulating the imaginations of others. Together, and separately, they celebrate the absolute mystery of otherness. "

" Nice clothes fall apart. Nice clocks don't work. Bits fall off the nice cooker. It is hard to accept that pricing is unrelated to quality, but it's plainly true. Nowadays, we pay the price that satisfies our particular personality type; and then we live with the painful consequences. "