I think of myself as a very ordinary person. I like writing about the juxtaposition between people: the beauty of them at times and then the banal, everyday context in which we find ourselves.

I like writing people from a slightly sharp angle and then throwing more light on them. I think in life we see somebody and make judgments very quickly about who they are and what they are. Or we think people are boring because they appear ordinary.

Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

I am not a hero, O.K.? I am not a hero. I am a very ordinary person.

I am an ordinary person.

In writing about Harold and Maureen with their terrible unspoken secret, and all those people that Harold meets as he walks to save a friend's life, I was trying to celebrate the ordinary people.