But you can try to read books at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons.

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.

Everyone sounded the same when they died.

No one knows you better than the one who created you.

The lowest form of popular culture - lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives - has overrun real journalism.

No parent at home is saying my gosh, if we can just get a higher minimum wage, all of our aspirations have been realized.

I didn't want to become a personality, I wanted to be a musician, but because I didn't have an album to stand by yet it was hard for people to see that. But now, two albums in, I'm happy with things.

I guess a drag queen's like an oil painting: You gotta stand back from it to get the full effect.

So why in the name of Merlin’s saggy left —” “Don’t talk to your mother like that.

Time exists so that everything doesn't happen at once.

[Vladimir] Putin took a look at them [Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama] and said, I can push these guys around the world. These are children compared to me. Donald Trump is not a child.