Andrew O'Hagan
Andrew O'Hagan
ideas people should
The idea that people in novels should be more sympathetic than people in life simply baffles me.
children believe age
Like children all over the world, by the age of 10 I'd come to believe that most of the really humane creatures were not really human at all.
football brother boys
I wasn't like other boys. At any rate, I wasn't like my three elder brothers: they excelled at football and they were like other boys, going up to bed each night hugging annuals filled with stories about the glories of Pele and Danny McGrain.
morning thinking sitting-down
I think I am becoming obsessive-compulsive. David Beckham apparently turns all the Diet Coke cans in his fridge to face the same way every morning, and I nerdily sharpen all the pencils in my pot before sitting down to work.
shame crime know-yourself
It's not a crime not to know yourself. It's not a crime to send life away. It's just a shame.
names years once-upon-a-time
Once upon a time, I thought that politics was the name we gave to our higher instincts. That was before Margaret Thatcher, who came to power when I was 11 years old.
animals beneath great hidden obvious secret talking
In Britain, the great hidden secret of talking animals and children's literature is how political it was in its bones, beneath the obvious cuteness.
anybody both certain curse good novelists places several
Novelists are no more moral or certain than anybody else; we are ideologically adrift, and if we are any good then our writing will live in several places at once. That is both our curse and our charm.
forget human invention might modern novelists power realist rely seem source speech subject taken time
We sometimes forget that human invention can also be a subject of human invention: that might seem a modern notion, or a postmodern one, but novelists have taken time - sometimes time out from their realist fixations - to source and satirise the speech and power we rely on.
believe crippled known love novelists people thrive
I don't believe in the meteoric culture of anxiety, generally. Obviously, some people have it, some people are crippled by it, but most of the novelists I've ever known are in love with influence. They thrive on it.
everybody good original possibly society spirited
Everybody has an idea of the kind of society they'd like to live in, and I would like to live in one where our senior politicians were spirited and original and possibly even good at what they do.
among human literary
Every literary culture has among its first bearings the 'blether' of animals who seek to make sense of human existence.
author danish men mysterious tangled thrillers writer wrote
When I was growing up, my idea of a writer was someone like Sven Hassel, that mysterious Danish author who wrote thrillers about men clambering over walls and getting tangled in barbed wire.
elitism feeling gallery good growing local room
When I was growing up, there was a feeling in one's living room as much as in one's local gallery that a little elitism was good for the soul.