And now, what are those of us who are elected public officials supposed to do? We call ourselves "public servants" but I'll tell you this: We as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good if we are derelict in upholding the common good. More is required -- More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.

After four knee surgeries and hundreds of shots injected into my knee weekly to alleviate swelling and pain, my body is begging me to stop the pounding. My previous three surgeries were on my right knee. My most recent knee surgery took place this July and was on my left knee.

Now my job is to defend everybody. But I don’t mind. Because I travel, and I like to talk to people and really listen to them. And I have no prejudices. I figured out a long time ago that, whatever I think I know, I don’t know anything. Once I realized that, I really started learning. That’s a great strength: I know that I don’t know.

In every way at every turn, the question we ask ourselves is not what can we do, but what should we do?.”

Sitting down to a leisurely conversation in an English tearoom with my wife, a friend, or even an interesting stranger. Good cake is essential.

I always suspected that she was the biggest influence on me. It seems unlikely, but I always suspected that. I used to say that in interviews, and people would think I was just being smart and evasive. But I reread Jane Eyre recently, and also Villette , her other great novel. I just came across episode after episode where I thought “Oh my goodness, I just ripped that off from this book!” Perhaps you wouldn’t recognize it, but I did. Certain kinds of techniques, certain moments when you understand that the narrator is crying, not because she tells you, but because somebody watching her makes a remark. All these little things that I thought, “Oh, I used that in that book,” or “Oh, that trick.” I think Charlotte Brontë had an enormous influence on me, and I think it’s something to do with that use of first-person and the evasiveness, the indirectness, of her first-person narrative. I mean this phrase, “the unreliable narrator,” has become very popular in creative writing. So it’s not quite that, but a very subtle use of the relationship between the writer and the book and the reader — something I tuned in on, I homed in on instantly, when I started to read Charlotte Brontë. But I’ll tell you, my favorite author — novelist — is somebody who you probably wouldn’t think had any relationship to me, which is Dostoyevsky. I’ve always loved Dostoyevsky, ever since I first read him. I think he’s one of the reasons I started to read, you know, when I read Crime and Punishment when I was about 17 or 18. Dostoyevsky and Chekhov for me remain like two poles in terms of a way to approach things. I love the messiness of Dostoyevsky, the improvised — I mean a lot of it is a mess, but I like the way that strange, unexpected things have obviously come tumbling out of him that he didn’t want to necessarily have come tumbling out. On the other hand, you know, Chekhov, another great Russian writer, exemplifies the calm, controlled, very carefully structured, understated kind of work. I aspire to them both. They’re two of my great heroes.

It’s funny you say that because I never have this moment when I feel, “Ah, I’ve finished!” I watch footballers at the end of the match, you know, the whistle goes and they’ve won or lost. Until then they’ve been giving everything and at that moment they know it’s over. It’s funny for an author. There’s never a finishing whistle. It’s not very spectacular.

I always dreamt of having a second stomach I could carry around in a bag, which I could attach to my real stomach when I sat down in restaurants. That way, I could eat a huge amount, never gaining weight.

The urge to be unpleasant to waitstaff in restaurants.

Like Joel McCrea’s character at the end of the movie Ride the High Country. (He says something about “entering his house justified,” sits up to take a last look at the scenery, then rolls contentedly out of the frame.) Or like Bill Nighy’s character at the end of our film Living.