"If you take the contempt some Americans have for yuppies and multiply it by 10 you might come close to understanding their attitude towards the City, as they call it - London, the people of the south."

"There is a huge antipathy in England between the north and the south, the working class and the owning class."

"Then years back, when I moved to California, I happened to see a book about fashions of 19th-century Victorian England, only four pages of which was devoted to the dress of the working class."

"I've always been struck by how unsuspicious people are in general, if you tell them what you're about."

"I have another Russian idea, too, with a place and a period, so I guess I have enough to keep me busy for quite some time, especially considering that I'm such a slow writer."

"I feel very bad about getting things wrong."

"The fact is that I loved being in England."

"The government is shutting down the coal industry, they say it's cheaper to draw nuclear power off the French grid and cheaper to buy coal from Colombia."

"I've got a book of poetry by the bed, one of these big collections that goes back to the Greeks and Romans."

"I hate to be categorized."

"Most people - and particularly people whose lives have nothing to do with books at all - are intrigued by the idea that somebody wants to listen to them and get it right."

"Then there was the whole concept of coal mining, which is a culture unto itself, the most dangerous occupation in the world, and which draws and develops a certain kind of man."

"I never thought I would just be doing Arkady books."

"The great thing about being a writer is that you are always recreating yourself."

"But at the same time I went down into the mines with working miners who are still young men, younger than I am, who are aware that their working life is coming to an end and they feel suddenly cut off."

"I'm very aware when I'm speaking to the English of how flat my Mid-Atlantic American voice is."