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I can say that even in the midst of my most cynical comic stripping: Opus shone through with a bit of heart, anchoring the ugly proceedings with a comforting pull of emotion.

I drew the last image ever of Opus at midnight while Puccini was playing and I got rather stupid. Thirty years. A bit like saying goodbye to a child - which is ironic because I was never, never sentimental about him as many of his fans were.

For years I'd understood that publishing in paperback was the kiss of death.

My symphonies would have reached Opus 100 if I had but written them down... Sometimes I am so full of music, and so overflowing with melody, that I find it simply impossible to write down anything.

You don't go out and play Beethoven's 'Opus 111' without having rethought about it every time you play.

A writer's definitive death is when no one reads his books anymore. That's the final death.

Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.

I think there are readers out there and I don't think the book is dead. And more importantly I don't think readers have to choose between literary and commercial fiction.

I was keen to stage 'Faust,' although I find Goethe's 'Faust' indigestible.