I used to do a lot of interviews in the early '80s when my career started but it came to a point when I decided I didn't want to talk anymore and people kind of understood that and left me alone.

As a child I had to get up early for school or work. I'd get ready by myself. I'd set my alarm to wake me up very early in the morning and be off to work the family driver driving me every morning. I did it alone my parents never coming in to wake me up.

Writers may be disreputable incorrigible early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.

Early on if I was alone two three nights in a row I'd start writing poems about suicide.

I really enjoy being single again. I spent a lot of time in a relationship and the nearer we came to the end the more difficult it got. You don't see things clearly as long as you're still involved.

If there is anything I would do differently in my life it is that I would study business more. I'm trying to teach my daughter Chloe at an early age about investing and money so she's not afraid of it.

I like to be alone so I can write. But focus can hurt you. I don't want to be some stress casualty in early middle age.

I never quite toed the line. I was a bit disruptive. All my early school reports from the age of 5 were 'Daniel must learn not to distract others.' And now that's what I do for a living.

All my early school reports from the age of 5 were 'Daniel must learn not to distract others.'

I never felt totally 100% patriotically English... I'd seen a lot of the world by an early age - sort of spent a lot of time traveling around Lebanon and I'd seen Babylon and Damascus and all sorts of places in the Middle East by the time I was ten. Then we'd return to Ruslip in West London... Done a fair bit of traveling really.