I had started writing as a poet in a closed, post-Revival, claustrophobic world, where the shadows of the national upheaval and the intense effort - the intense self-conscious effort - to make a literary movement were still evident. Now we lived a life as writers that was more cosmopolitan, more open, that had more travel and exchange.

The kinds of roles dogs fill can be hard to come by in human relationships. We touch the dog or the pet at whim. There is a lack of self-consciousness and a fluidity to it that is absent from most human relationships. If someone acted that way to you, you'd feel claustrophobic pretty quickly. It's a boundary violation.

I really wouldn't want to live in America. I found New York claustrophobic and dirty. I missed England when I was there, simple things like smells and the British sense of humor.

I'm considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family - father, mother, children - is fundamental to our civilisation.

I have crazy claustrophobic dreams, weird elevator dreams where the elevator closes in and all of a sudden I am lying down - oh my God, it's a casket. Just freaky stuff like that.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

What I'd say about that is that we must respect homosexuals in the church. I've got many homosexual friends the issue is not in any way a homophobic reaction on my part.

Gay culture is surviving and thriving. Some activists believe the recent rise in homophobic violence might be a gauge of the success of positive gay images.

America is still mostly xenophobic and racist. That's the nature of America I think.

I really wouldn't want to live in America. I found New York claustrophobic and dirty. I missed England when I was there simple things like smells and the British sense of humor.

If the euro zone doesn't come up with a comprehensive vision of its own future you'll have a whole range of nationalist xenophobic and extreme movements increasing across the European Union. And frankly questions about the British debate on EU membership will just be a small sideshow compared to the rise of political populism.

I fear dying in the middle of a book. It would be so annoying to write 80 000 words and not get to the end. I'm phobic about it. So when I'm writing a book I leave messages all over the house for people to know how the story ends and then someone can finish it for me.

I have been thinking about the notion of perfect love as being without fear and what that means for us in a world that's becoming increasingly xenophobic tortured by fundamentalism and nationalism.

I'm considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family - father mother children - is fundamental to our civilisation.