"This is my truth tell me yours." - Manic Street Preachers

"From Dickens to Winnie the Pooh, food, glorious food seems to be ubiquitous in all types of literature. Which books get your tastebuds flowing?... Why is it that so many books are about hunger, the little empty space inside, physical or emotional?"

"As the snows have sunk deep into my bones these past few days and I write from a swathe of blankets, I have been contemplating the vast numbers of sick people who do actually limp through the pages of fiction. There is something compelling for writers and readers about the body in pain, about damage. . . "

"The countries that are failing are like Tolstoyan unhappy families."