Zitat des Tages über Jane Austen:
I would love mainland Chinese to read my book. There is a Chinese translation which I worked on myself, published in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many copies have gone into China but it is still banned.
Pubs are, disturbingly, where I hatch most of my best idea-sculptures: possibly it's something to do with the disinhibiting effects of alcohol, or maybe it's just having company to yack at.
I've been fortunate in that I never actually read any Jane Austen until I was thirty, thus sparing myself several decades of the unhappiness of having no new Jane Austen novels to read.
Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.
The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings.
People think I'm a freemason, and I'm not. People think I believe the end of the world is coming on 21 December 2012, and I don't.
At 11, I passed the scholarship - only just; I wasn't very good at maths - to Ilford County High for Girls. When the Second World War started we were evacuated, first of all to Ipswich, and then to Aberdare, Queen of the Valleys, in south Wales.
War never accomplishes anything. It's never going to look good in the history books. People are never going to look back and think, 'He started a lot of wars; what a great leader he was!' That's not the way it works. God knows how many more of these things we're going to need before it starts to sink in.
If trustees feel it is in their charity's interest to pay high salaries to attract talented people, then they should have the courage of their conviction and explain their decisions publicly.
I spend a lot of time looking at rococo books. And almanacs used to be huge sellers - they were pretty much part of the fabric of life. I thought, this is bizarre, I'd love to buy a book like this, and there isn't one. So I thought, all right then, this could be fun. I'll write an almanac.
I'd been a thriller reader all my life.
From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.
I've given up email. Well, almost. At the weekend I set up one of those auto-reply messages, informing my correspondents that I would no longer be checking my emails, and that instead they might like to call or write, as we used to in the olden days.
I like films, or some films, and would be intrigued to see my work on screen.
I like stirring the pot - I think it's part of my duty, to shake people up a bit - make them look at things in a different way.
I'd grown up in the U.K., where the surveillance apparatus went into place in the 1970s in response to the Troubles with the IRA. When I was a kid, we moved to Chicago, and I was surprised to see you could live in a large city in which you didn't have cameras on every street corner.
I'm aware families sit around the telly to watch 'Vera', which is making entertainment out of murder. But I don't enjoy reading about people's pain. I tend to put myself in that position, and it's not somewhere I want to be.
He's suffering from Politicians' Logic. Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it.
The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis.
Everyday holds the possibility of a miracle.
My little yorkie Floyd is the ultimate buddy, and his passport has as many stamps as mine.
Being lazy does not mean that you do not create. In fact, lying around doing nothing is an important, nay crucial, part of the creative process. It is meaningless bustle that actually gets in the way of productivity. All we are really saying is, give peace a chance.
There are many ways to improve your writing. Here's the bad news: 1.They all require hard work. 2.There is no magic bullet.
Burn not thy fingers to snuff another man's candle.
I think it says something that I have never had an obscene letter. A young man once attempted one, but it was so totally illiterate and hopeless that it made me laugh.
Although my book is banned I am still allowed to go to China and travel. There is no longer the kind of control that Mao used to have-there have been deep fundamental changes in society.
Doing something you enjoy at times of your own choosing and making a living from it: now tell me, is that work?
Being the Children's Laureate has been educational, sometimes hectic, but most of all, great fun.
It will be in the convergence of evolutionary biology, developmental biology and cancer biology that the answer to cancer will lie. Nor will this confluence be a one-way street.
When we are afraid we ought not to occupy ourselves with endeavoring to prove that there is no danger, but in strengthening ourselves to go on in spite of the danger.
I'm the ayatollah of the Jane Austen fan base! I want to lead the fan base, not be attacked and devoured by the fan base.
I also had a tremendous passion for art and read a lot.
I don't think I could, with a straight face, describe myself as a completely positive person, but I'm not overly negative, either. On the whole, most writers think plots through to their consequences, and it's not always a sunny place. I have an occupational temperament for anxiety.
I just feel that if I'm English and writing about an American president, I have got to have someone on my side who can help me out when I'm lapsing into lazy or obvious European skepticism.
For a younger generation to imagine a time where there was no security at airports - going around the world in the bar of a jumbo jet, 'Tell the plane to wait, I'm running late!' - there is something very Austin Powers about David Frost, a man who, in all seriousness, would approach women in a safari suit, with sideburns.
I've been criticised for writing in too complex a manner for younger people.