But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

I like the rain before it falls. of course there is no such thing, she said. That's why it's my favorite. Something can still make you happy, can't it, even if it isn't real.

I'm one of those unlucky people who had a happy childhood.

The writer I feel the most affinity with - you said you felt my books are 19th century novels, I think they're 18th century novels - is Fielding, Henry Fielding, he's the guy who does it for me.

Objectivity is just male subjectivity.

You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it.

Writers never feel comfortable having labels attached to them, however accurate they are.

Contemporary Britain seems an endlessly fascinating place to me - but if I knew a little bit more about other places, and other times, maybe it wouldn't.

Some people don't realize that a straight 'No' can be the kindest answer in the world.

Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.

For many weeks after [my wife] died, I could not get used to the feeling of coldness and lifelessness on her side of the bed - and it was even worse when they took the body away and buried her.

Look forward with confidence and backwards with attitude.

They see me smile, but the don't know what I feel inside.

Time after time ... today's crisis shrinks to next week's footnote to a newly headline disaster.

If someone strikes my heart, it does not break, but it bursts, and the flame coming out of it becomes a torch on my path.

The advocates of public control cannot do without inflation. They need it in order to finance their policy of reckless spending and of lavishly subsidizing and bribing the voters.

when knowledge comes in at the door, fear and superstition fly out of the window.

Israel cannot afford to stand against the entire world and be denounced as the aggressor.

I'm beyond caring what anyone expects of me anymore.

I carry with me many scars, but I also carry with me moments that would not have happened if I had not dared to go beyond my limits

I enjoy popularisation and I think I'm reasonably good at it. I also think it's a duty. It's just so pedagogically stupid to forget how difficult one found these ideas oneself to begin with.