James Lasdun quotes:

The short story seems like the best of all possible worlds. I do feel it is closer to writing poetry than to writing a novel, with its requirements of concentration and economy.

I am not a supporter of Israel's military policy, let alone any kind of Zionist.

I consider myself a writer. I don't favour any type of writing. I sometimes wish short stories came more easily to me.

I don't think I could, with a straight face, describe myself as a completely positive person, but I'm not overly negative, either. On the whole, most writers think plots through to their consequences, and it's not always a sunny place. I have an occupational temperament for anxiety.

For a long period of history, you were what people said about you, and if your reputation was stained, you were in very serious trouble. People fought duels over this. Then it fades away historically.

I got into online trading. It was alarmingly easy to do. I went through the whole cycle of emotions, from supreme self-confidence to total impotence. I broke even in the end.

There is something uncannily adaptive about anti-Semitism: the way it can hide, unsuspected, in the most progressive minds.