I Think In Retrospect That

The Life Of The Professional Writer - Like That Of Any Freelance, Whether She Be A Plumber Or A Podiatrist - Is Predicated On Willpower. Without It There Simply Wouldn't Be Any Remuneration, Period.

I Think Of Writing As A Sculptural Medium. You Are Not Building Things. You Are Removing Things, Chipping Away At Language To Reveal A Living Form.

Here We Meet, On The Page, Naked And Unadorned: Shorn Of Class, Race, Gender, Sexual Identity, Age And Nationality.

The Marvellous Thing About Writing, Whether It Be Fiction Or Journalism, Is That It Is Simultaneously The Most Intimate And The Most Anonymous Of Meetings Between People. It Is Profoundly Intimate In Reaching Into The Psyche Of Another, At The Same Time As Being Devoid Of Social Characteristics, Cultural Characteristics, Economic Characteristics.

The British And American Literary Worlds Operate In An Odd Kind Of Symbiosis: Our Critics Think Our Contemporary Novelists Are Not The Stuff Of Greatness Whereas Certain Contemporary Americans Indubitably Are. Their Critics Often Advance The Exact Opposite: British Fiction Is Cool, American Naff.