Books that change you, even later in life, give you a kind of electrical shock as the world takes a different shape.

When I was a child - in wartime, pre-television - books were my life.

I am suspicious of writers who go looking for issues to address. Writers are neither preachers nor journalists. Journalists know much more than most writers about what's going on in the world. And if you want to change things, you do journalism.

I don't think it is an easy thing to write and expect to be commercial, even if you are from Venus and a hermaphrodite.

America is full of readers of all different sorts who love books in many different ways, and I keep meeting them. And I think editors should look after them, and make less effort to please people who don't actually like books.

The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free.