"I'm always fascinated by etymology."

"I know writing is what I do but I still don't see myself as one."

"[Kafka] taught me a lot about the normal and the abnormal, and the distance between them. [...] He's out there by him…"

"The Bible has entered much of my work as have Latin and Greek mythology and verse."

"I rang up this publisher and they asked me what I was doing at the time. I told them I was a house-painter, so first …"

"I often find poems hand written in old abandoned notebooks."

"There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer – reading is so much a part of it."

"Without the reader there would be no writer."

"I'm no good at dinner parties. I feel very uneasy at them."

"I like the idea of stopping mid-sentence, like Graham Greene."