If Their Work Is Satisfying People Don't

I Feel That, In A Sense, The Writer Knows Nothing Any Longer. He Has No Moral Stance. He Offers The Reader The Contents Of His Own Head, A Set Of Options And Imaginative Alternatives. His Role Is That Of A Scientist, Whether On Safari Or In His Laboratory, Faced With An Unknown Terrain Or Subject. All He Can Do Is To Devise Various Hypotheses And Test Them Against The Facts.

Most English Writers Are Not Interested In Change But In The Social Novel. That Demands A Static Backdrop. I'm Intensely Interested In Change - Probably As A Matter Of Self-preservation. What The Hell Is Going To Happen Next?

A General Rule: If Enough People Predict Something, It Won't Happen.

If You're Against Globalisation, It Doesn't Achieve Much By Sort Of Bombing The Head Offices Of Shell Or Nestle. You Unsettle People Much More By Blowing Up An Oxfam Shop Because People Can't Understand The Motive.

By The Eighteenth Book, One Has A Sense Of Having Bricked Oneself Into A Niche, A Roosting Place For Other People's Pigeons. I Wouldn't Recommend It.