I'm not super-polite or civil - I try to be civil, but I'm not into Seattle's niceties, and I'm not hugely wired into Seattle's natural beauty.

I would hate to be that person who is, you know, the mystery writer who has to deliver a book every year to publisher X.

All human beings have bodies. All bodies are mortal. Yours, too, is one of these bodies.

Good poets borrow; great poets steal.

We're all Vanilla Ice. Look at Girl Talk and Danger Mouse. Look at William Burroughs, whose cut-up books antedate hip hop sampling by decades. Shakespeare remixed passages of Holinshed's 'Chronicles' in 'Henry VI.' Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture' embeds the French national anthem.

I believe in copyright, within limited precincts. But I also believe in fair use, public domain, and especially transformation.

Both of my parents were journalists, and my rebellion, such as it was, was to become a fiction writer.

I want the reader to join me on an intellectual and emotional journey into some major aspect of existence.

I think there are people who are born storytellers. I think of someone like T. C. Boyle or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I think really, without putting any pejorative on it, they're like carnival barkers, 'Come into the tent, and I'll tell you this story.'

I couldn't tell a story if my life depended on it. I'm the world's worst joke-teller.

Literature matters so much to me I can hardly stand it.

I used to feel that everything I know I learned through my lifelong struggle with stuttering; I now feel this way about my damn back.

Gerald Jonas's book about stuttering is called 'The Disorder of Many Theories.' Back theory seems to suffer from the same 'Rashomon' effect: as with almost every human problem, there is no dearth of answers and no answer.

In the summer of 1956, my mother was pregnant with me, which caused my father to confess his fear that I was going to be too much of a burden for him because he had a history of depression.

I want work that, possessing as thin a membrane as possible between life and art, foregrounds the question of how the writer solves being alive.

Straightforward fiction functions only as more Bubble Wrap, nostalgia, retreat.

The only requirement of a fan or a patient is the surrender to authority.

You don't think anyone who lives an ordinary life has plenty of trouble and torment to write about?

I hope readers will think that 'The Thing About Life' is beautifully patterned, a tapestry.

People like Ian McEwan and Jonathan Franzen completely bore me.

I'm very fond of this phrase: 'Collage is not a refuge for the compositionally disabled.' If you put together the pieces in a really powerful way, I think you'll let a thousand discrepancies bloom.

I still see life entirely through its Darwinian prism. I keep trying to shake off the aftereffects of writing 'The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead', and I find I can't.

Aging followed by death is the price we pay for the immortality of our genes. You find this information soul-killing; I find it thrilling, liberating.

Winners don't believe in fate like others do. They simply cannot accept defeat.

You gain know-how from playing matches because every moment of a football match has its own rhythm.

City came in strongly for me, put their cards on the table, and what I have found out since is that every game in England is a privilege - the atmosphere, the fans, the interest that surrounds it. Every time I go out on the pitch, I know I've made the right decision.

People say I should go to Real Madrid or Barcelona, but my team is Las Palmas.

The Champions League is the most important competition; it's fundamental to be involved in it.

Everyone has an image of a premature child, but until you live it and experience it, you just don't know how bad it is.

I love compliments; of course I do. Everybody wants to receive compliments. But the team is the important thing, and I'd rather win things as a team than finish up with individual honours.

Of course El Clasico is a great night, but I don't have an overwhelming desire to play in that game.

The Premier League is the place to be.

The Premier League and the World Cup are equally important to me.

I am not too worried about not scoring many goals as long as someone else is.

The way I like to play, it really helps when I have more people around me to combine with.

Every derby match is different, just like every season is different.

I like to play in the middle, even though I can play on both wings.

I am an attacking midfielder, and I have scored goals, but I want to score more and win more.

The aim for the future is always to win titles, become champions of the Premier League, and more.

If I had to return to Valencia, I would not rule that out.

Someone from the family is always with me in England, and for me, that's the perfect life.

With football, you can never predict what's going to happen.

The big difference between league football in England and Spain is that more teams compete here. In Spain, it is usually only two teams going for the title, which is not necessarily a bad thing because you get great matches between the two, but I think the English league is better for being more competitive.

I'm confident I can be a success in English football.

I'm very happy to be at City, and I would like to continue there for as long as possible. It obviously depends on my health, my quality on the pitch, and if the club want me to stay. I would like to be there until the end, but the Premier League is such a hard league to play in. It is much more physical than somewhere like La Liga, so it depends.

I think that by playing centre midfield in the middle of the park, I'm doing something which comes naturally to me.

After winning such an important title as the World Cup, to win the Premier League and to see supporters in Manchester who have waited so long to win it would be important to me.

I'm a very quiet person, and I always try to take the pressure off myself before games.

I've always said that I'd like to play for Las Palmas - my local team.

I've always said I'm very happy at City.