With all editing, no matter how sensitive - and I've been very lucky here - I react sulkily at first, but then I settle down and get on with it, and a year later I have my book in my hand.

It gives me confidence to know that what I'm writing has a veracity of its own without me having to invent it. When I'm writing fiction, I must believe it to be true, or I can see no point in it.

One of the great failings of our education system is that we tend to focus on those who are succeeding in exams, and there are plenty of them. But what we should also be looking at, and a lot more urgently, is those who fail.

You know, I really wish now I'd had the nerve to become an actor. Because I'd have been Robert Redford, no question.

Paying more heed to the lessons of the past might teach us to be a little more cautious about some of the political decisions taken today.