Cancel culture: getting stuck on the discourse rather than looking at the system.

In the first few months of Nubank, I asked everybody to be here by 8:00 a.m. every day. I saw it as a test of people's commitment, and I was pretty rigid about it.

Based on how the scene felt I completely switched the dynamics.

Oh, most days. I can watch a political programme and think, “That sounds a really good point.” Then someone will argue the opposite and I’ll think, “Yeah, he’s got a point as well.” I am constantly sitting on a fence.

That's it. Mostly. Really, the people and the issues all come together in a sort of clump or knot, and writing the story is untying, unwinding the knot.

Taoism gave me a handle on how to look at life and how to lead it when I was an adolescent hunting for ways to make sense of the world without going off into the God business. Returning to Lao-tzu throughout the years, I’ve always found—and find—him offering what I want or need to learn.

Anyhow, I think when you have a novel to write again, it will begin visiting you, whispering, “Write me.” Till then, no jumper cable, not even a lightning bolt, can bring it into being.

But when people say, Did you always want to be a writer?, I have to say no! I always was a writer. I didn’t want to be a writer and lead the writer’s life and be glamorous and go to New York. I just wanted to do my job writing, and to do it really well.

Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.

Sometimes it just seems like the more women tell the truth, the less men want to hear it.