I think my writing was certainly shaped from having lived in a place like Niverville as well as by the family that I came from, the religion that I had, that type of thing.

I wasn't a cliquey person, and I think that's because I came from a large family. I got along with everybody, and I usually got along with the people that people didn't like.

Only when I came to America did I think of myself as British.

I think a construction project for me is like writing a novel. I can't do the project unless I can envision sort of the whole structure and see what the end result might be.

I came from a big family... a big family of Southerners.

I believed that, in a situation where the community that I came from were being treated like second- and third-class citizens, that I had a responsibility to fight back against it. And I don't apologise to anybody for having done that. I think it was the right thing to do.