Language tethers us to the world; without it we spin like atoms.

I've always been fascinated by the operation of memory - the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence.

We make choices but are constantly foiled by happenstance.

I'm not a historian but I can get interested - obsessively interested - with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the very recent past.

It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.

The present hardly exists, after all-it becomes the past even as it happens. A tricky medium, time - and central to the concerns of fiction.

We all act as hinges-fortuitous links between other people.

The consideration of change over the century is about loss, though I think that social change is gain rather than loss.

We all need a past - that's where our sense of identity comes from.

Getting to know someone else involves curiosity about where they have come from, who they are.

The Photograph is concerned with the power that the past has to interfere with the present: the time bomb in the cupboard.

Never give up. May hope be your anchor.

With peaks of joy and valleys of heartache, life is a roller coaster ride, the rise and fall of which defines our journey. It is both scary and exciting at the same time.

of seatbelts as an opportunity to take up drunk-driving.

The dear, stupid body is as easily satisfied as a spaniel.

Easy enough to dismiss others' problems when you had none of your own.

Ill wéede growth fast.

I come straight from hell, Cell 23

I started by writing, with my partner Ed Simmons, a monologue for Danny Thomas, that he performed at Ciro's nightclub in Los Angeles.

Until I got married, when I used to go out, my mother said good bye to me as though I was emigrating.

So I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said 'Who's speaking please?' And a voice said 'You are.'