There Are Things That Can't Be Said,

My Father Is From Newark In Nottinghamshire And My Mother Is From The Very North Of Ireland. They've Ended Up In Scotland, Where My Father - Well, Both Of Them - Will Always Be Seen As Having Come From Somewhere Else.

I Wouldn't Call My Work Modernist. I Would Rust If I Try To Think About Labels. I'd Feel Like The Tin Man In 'the Wizard Of Oz.

We'd Never Expect To Understand A Piece Of Music On One Listen, But We Tend To Believe We've Read A Book After Reading It Just Once.

Short Stories Consume You Faster. They're Connected To Brevity. With The Short Story, You Are Up Against Mortality. I Know How Tough They Are As A Form, But They're Also A Total Joy.

I Had A Job, I Got Ill, I Left The Job To Get Better, And While I Was Getting Better, I Wrote Some Stories. I Sent Them To Some Publishers And The Fifth One Who Replied Said They'd Take Them. Then They Went Bankrupt. Then That Bankrupt Publisher Got Bought By A Bigger Firm. Story: In The End Is The Beginning, And In The Beginning Is The End.