“Everything has changed. When I was at school and was told I had better learn English, I said: What for? The English are a hell of a long way away!”

“Obviously any fiction is going to be a combination of what is invented, what is overheard, what is experienced, what is experienced by people close to you, what you are told, what you have read, all mixed together into this kind of soup which, like any good soup, at the end you cannot really disting”