I don't look good in beige.

I've been very lucky with prizes. But the thing about prizes is that, when you talk about a prize-winning author, you can be talking about one that is well-regarded but doesn't sell any books.

I feel the political failings of the U.S.A. are presidential in length, but the aspirant narrative of the States is millennial in length.

Inside, Penlee House is without pretension. It is a space that knows its limitations and its strengths - and makes the most of them.

I like shaped things. I like shape in things, and I do overshape things, it's true.

The Commonwealth Prize is about celebrating the Commonwealth and the special relationship we have with the ex-colonies - which is part guilt and part warmth - and the Booker Prize isn't an essential part of that, but it is part of that.

I'm not a new-agey person, but narrative is ancient and wise and generous.

While we're having all these debates about how the book is being destroyed by the Kindle, we have to remember that narrative will not be affected at all because it's part of our makeup as a creature on this planet.

Lots of people hate my stuff.

There's a convention that books are mirrors of the real world, but our fact-obsessed age also wants fiction to be factually based and trustworthy.

I'm a very secretive person.

Part of me feels that I'm letting people down by not being as interesting as my books.

All the uncontrollable and unpredictable parts of my life - from the actual creation to my emotional responses to the finished book - I've succeeded in banishing to the office. And I think I'm happier for it.

I'm a matter-of-fact, office-hours writer.

I come from a working-class background where I was much more likely to read socialist books and leaflets than Bronte or Dickens - neither of whom I've yet read.

I'm not that well-versed in literary theory - I don't know what it is.

When people asked me what I did, I'd say, 'I work in publishing', and when they then say, 'What side of it?', I say, 'Supply' - no doubt leaving them to think I drive the books around in a van and deliver them.

The western view of Christ is usually of a stainless being with fair hair who appears to have come from Oslo.

Everyone says I should write a natural history or landscape book because if I have an area of amateur expertise, it is in those things.

You can't sing baritone when you're a soprano.

Narrative is so rich; it's given up so much.

I felt that, in some ways, my novels lacked heart because of the distance between me and the subject matter. But no one wants to read a book based on good health, a happy upbringing, a long marriage.

There is no comparison. The American landscape is so much more dangerous. They have real snakes, mountain lions, bears; we only have adders, and they're more frightened of us than we are of them.

I'm not good at dialogue. I'm not good at holding a mirror up at a real world. I'm not good at believable characterisation.