Scottish - Novelist | 1968 -
When I was very young, I thought the theatre was a place where higher beings went about their celestial business, as if they knew nothing of ordinary life and its political mysteries.
Andrew O'Hagan
LifeBusinessTheatreThoughtPlace
The characters in 'Be Near Me' come from a genuine place, a Britain that is more than one country and more than one ideal.
MeCountryPlaceGenuineMoreCome
When I look back at my childhood on the Ayrshire coast, I recall a basic devotion to the idea that human nature and national character are as unknowable as the weather's rationale.
NatureCharacterChildhoodWeather
As a writer I care about America, and care about its carelessness.
CareAmericaWriterCarelessness
Interviewing is not a democratic art.
ArtDemocraticInterviewing
Writing a novel is an act of self-annihilation as much as self-discovery. You can kill whole appetites and flood whole depths while plumbing them, but if you are serious about it you also get to put something into the world that wasn't quite there before.
WritingWorldYouSeriousPlumbing
I've been asked which of the other arts novel-writing is most like, and I have come to believe it is acting. Of course, in terms of pattern it can be like music, in terms of structure it can be like painting, but the job to me is most like acting.
MusicJobMePaintingBelieveArts
The idea that people in novels should be more sympathetic than people in life simply baffles me.
LifePeopleMeMoreIdeaThan
There's a horrible fallacy that exists in the popular discussion of fiction these days: the idea that a successful central character need be 'likeable' or 'sympathetic'. It is surely more important that they be human, no? More crucial that they breathe?
CharacterImportantMoreHumanNeed
I think I am becoming obsessive-compulsive. David Beckham apparently turns all the Diet Coke cans in his fridge to face the same way every morning, and I nerdily sharpen all the pencils in my pot before sitting down to work.
WorkMorningI AmFaceThinkDiet
When I was growing up, there was a feeling in one's living room as much as in one's local gallery that a little elitism was good for the soul.
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A living museum must surely see itself as a locus of argument. A breathing art institution is not a lockup but a moveable feast.
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