With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes.

Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!

I believe that, in any novel of mine, the principal objective is the construction of the whole.

The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of.

I love the game of football. I've been playing since I was 6 years old, and now that I am retired and not really into it physically, it's all about the mental part of it now. It's just coaching and teaching the game.

I have a fond place in my heart for Seattle, so I hope that an NBA team comes back to this great city, this great sports city.

I do genuinely believe that young people who play sport at a competitive level, sensibly controlled, sensibly organised, that has to be a good thing. It will teach them to win, it will teach them to lose with dignity and magnanimity - all the things you want. It's a pretty good metaphor for life.

Back home, the Iron Bowl isn't just a football game, it's a phenomenon.