Advertising, the product of capitalism, can only justify itself on the premise that the market is a force for good.

'Powers of Persuasion: The Story of British Advertising' by Winston Fletcher - the impression you get from reading this book, which covers post-war advertising until the present, is of a chaotic, self-serving, occasionally brilliant but ultimately shallow business.

Germany led the world in photography and film: 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari' and 'Metropolis' are works that, to this day, film buffs revere.

Great architects like Taut, Mendelsohn, and Gropius built some astonishing buildings which were to change the way architects around the world thought. Brecht and Weill forever changed musical theatre; Kaethe Kollwitz and others changed German perceptions of the purposes of art.

For novelists, sharply drawn moral conflicts are often useful, and even human and personal disasters can be seen as material.

It is true that it is usually for their books that novelists reserve their most considered and ordered thoughts, but the fact is they arise inescapably from one consciousness: the same one that is occupied in all the other activities which make up a life.

It is a commonplace to say that novelists should be judged by their work rather than their private lives or their publicly expressed views. And writers, of course, subscribe enthusiastically to this idea.

Winning the Whitbread was a very major thing for me. I'd always been well reviewed, but this made me widely read.

I thought that, post-apartheid, there would be absolutely no interest in South Africa. That has been both true and untrue. The major writers like Gordimer and Coetzee have produced major books. But some of the more minor writers have drifted away.

If I was at home, I'd find myself checking email and looking at the Internet when I should be working. In the library, I can get an awful lot done in a couple of hours, but it can become quite sociable, which you have to watch out for. There are a lot of people you can pop out and have a coffee with.

I suppose on the filmmaking side, you can learn how to cram a lot into a small space. But I think that advertising, even on what is called the creative side, is incredibly easy if you have that kind of mind. A lot of people regard it as Machiavellian and dangerous, but, in fact, it is morally neutral.

The working-class Africans are not doing very well, and one of the problems is their education is so shocking. It is routinely said it is a result of apartheid. Deliberately, black people were not allowed to know too much. They could read and write a bit to be useful, but that's about it.

This Oscar Pistorius business is interesting. There is this cult of carrying lots of guns and being ready to shoot somebody. There were people I knew had guns and carried them openly around Johannesburg. It is frowned on now to carry a gun, but Pistorius and co. got away with it.

I was lucky to get to Oxford. I am now an honorary fellow of my old college, which is nice, particularly for a colonial like me.

When Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature at the age of 88, she was the oldest person ever to receive the prize and one of only 11 female winners in its history. Her award was the end of a very long journey from a remote farm in Rhodesia to a banquet at Stockholm's Stadshus, the grand city hall in Stockholm.

There's this idea of bankers retiring and painting watercolours. You can't dabble in art - it's a life. Being a writer, an artist... is a whole life.

If I had been brought up in America, I think I would still have had the same sort of job as a writer.

The point about 'state-of-the-nation' novels is not that they should be about the 'state-of-the-nation', but they should be about people.

I win and lose in one way. And that's either putting them to sleep or putting it on the line and going to sleep.

I am a Division I All-American wrestler, but I wrestled college wrestling matches, seven minutes long. If I was to go in there and wrestle for seven minutes of a fight, a 25-minute fight, you're not getting nothing out of me for the rest of the time.

I went to college, I wrestled and I took some amateur fights. When I graduated, I wanted to start using my degree, but I figured I would start fighting professionally. Then I won 18 in a row and I fought Eddie Alvarez on pay-per-view.

I'm trying to be as real as I can and I'm being myself. I'm not gonna create an act.

I have a human services bachelors degree and I want to work social work, I want to work with at-risk youth.

You have to learn how to fight through when it sucks and it's really hard.

There's not a lot of people that can sit there and take the punishment that I can deliver.

I wrestled Jordan Burroughs two times - Jordan Burroughs had a hell of a time trying to take me down. I stopped his double leg numerous times. And he also, probably, fractured my sternum - from me trying to stop him.

I could lose and it could be the best fight ever, it still does great things for me.

Working in a juvenile detention center, being a probation officer for at-risk youths, I'll do something like that. Something nice and stable.

Humans recognize effort, and that's what I do. I give max effort.

I'm not an idiot.

I just like punching loudmouths in the face.

It's life or death for me every single time I step in the cage.

I'll worry about things I can control.

This is entertainment business and I fight for money.

A lot of people say I'm reckless and I take too many shots. I take shots on the forehead. There's nothing wrong with that. It puts me in punching range.

I happen to have a college education and I never planned on being a fighter.

You could be the best in the world, but it doesn't matter. It's four-ounce gloves. I've been dropped in practice with a knee to the body. I take a good knee to the body and break my ribs in the fight, I lost. I mean, it's a fight.

I don't want to fight guys ranked behind me.

I wish I was fighting Jason High in his hometown. I would put him to sleep in front of all his fans. He's mainly a wrestler, but I'm an All-American wrestler. So I'm really not worried about Jason High.

This is a making-money business, and the only way to make money is knocking people out. Lying on someone? That's pathetic to me. You gotta drop a bomb.

Me and my brother, as anybody who's a twin will tell you... it's a competitive relationship. Ours is really competitive.

My pressure is second to none and my timing and attitude are second to none, and that's what I want to be recognized for; not for being undefeated, because what does that mean? That just means you won. And I want to known for my style and the way that I fight, the timing that I bring and the fact that I rely on my reactions, stuff like that.

I'm not here to take damage. I don't want to not be able to talk. Every single time I fight, I know that... this could be the last time that you're able to do this, the last time you're able to talk.

I'm hoping to earn enough to buy a few properties, that way I can make money that way and I want to do social work.

At the end of the day, it's an unforgiving sport.

Whoever they send me a contract for, I'll fight him.

In hindsight, I'd love to be undefeated still, but that's not what this sport is.

I've never been in a street fight before, like one-on-one.

When I take a right hand, I roll with it. I don't absorb every single bit of the punch. There's different ways to alleviate some of the force of a punch besides just getting out of the way. When I take it, it's on my gloves.

I get paid by the fight, not by the minute.