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" There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one. "

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" I'm not at all interested in the brave who fight against the odds and win. I am interested in those who accept their lot, as that is what many people in the world are doing. They do their best in ghastly conditions. "

" What is difficult is the promotion, balancing the public side of a writer's life with the writing. I think that's something a lot of writers are having to face. Writers have become much more public now. "

" When I was younger, I didn't read that much. I was more interested in film and music. Now I'm curious. I want to know what it's all about. "

" What interests me is the surprising enormous extent to which most people accept the fate that's been given to them, and find some dignity. "

" Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory. I like the atmospheres that result if episodes are narrated through the haze of memory. "

" I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on and many that I had no control over whatsoever. "

" There's something peculiar about writing fiction. It requires an interesting balance between seeing the world as a child and having the wisdom of a middle-aged person. The further you get from childhood and the experience of the teenage years, the greater the danger of losing that wellspring. "

" There's a practical problem about time and energy, and a more subtle problem of what it does to a writer's head, to continually analyze why they write, where it all comes from, where it's going to. "

" I think jogging is bad for your health. All that pressure on the knees and back cannot be good for you. "

" The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists. "

" This is the big question that we all have about our children: How much, how soon, do we tell our children the less comfortable facts about the world they're going to inherit? "

" To some extent, at least, you have to shield children from what you know and drip-feed information to them. Sometimes that is kindly meant, and sometimes not. "

" I'm always trying to make something that is impossible to film. Why would somebody just read a novel when they can see it on TV or in the cinema? I really have to think of the things fiction can do that film can't and play to the strengths of the novel. With a novel, you can get right inside somebody's head. "

" I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on. "

" I'm very fortunate in that I don't have money problems. I have lunch with my wife at home. I don't have to commute, so I have much more time with my family. "

" I was a little concerned that a lot of people thought I wrote Merchant Ivory movies. I also thought if I was ever going to write something strange and difficult, that was the time. "

" I like the fact that by mimicking the way memory works, a writer can actually write in a fluid way - one solid scene doesn't have to fall on another solid scene, you can just have a fragment that then dovetails into another one that took place 30 years apart from it. "

" We all live inside bodies that will deteriorate. But when you look at human beings, they're capable of very decent things: love, loyalty. When time is running out, they don't care about possessions or status. They want to put things right if they've done wrong. "

" I work very regular hours, roughly 9 to 5:30. I think I have it much easier than a lot of parents. I just sit at home, I have a very flexible timetable, and I'm very fortunate in that I don't have money problems. I have lunch with my wife at home. I don't have to commute, so I have much more time with my family. "

" When I see films made from books, I make a huge effort not to remember the book. It's important to see the film as a film. "

" Now when I look back to the Guildford of that time, it seems far more exotic to me than Nagasaki. "

" There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter? "

" I discovered that my imagination came alive when I moved away from the immediate world around me. "

" I do feel part of that generation of people who were rather idealistic in the '70s and became disillusioned in the '80s. Not just about social services issues, but the world. "

" If you look at my last songs and first short stories, there is a real connection between them. "

" I had been plunged into a different world. I found myself spending half my time answering weird questions on book tours in the Midwest. People would stand up and explain to me the situation in their office and ask me whether they should resign or not. "

" I try to always go for something... very interior, following thoughts and memories, something that I think is difficult to do on the screen, which is essentially a third-person medium. "

" I don't hang out with the glitteringly successful people; I hang out with people who've been friends for many years, and to some extent I feel my worldly success is a bit uncomfortable for them. "

" I felt slightly superior to student politics, for instance. I had no reason to think this, but I thought of myself as slightly more seasoned. I became quite cynical talking to my student friends. "

" As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened. "