David Mitchell

As long as our civilisation keeps trundling along generally forwards, then there is the possibility of a future where ethnicity is merely an interesting badge, not a uniform you can't take off.

For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed.

If the human condition were the periodic table, maybe love would be hydrogen at No. 1. Death would be helium at No. 2. Power, I reckon, would be where oxygen is.

I am a big one for subtlety and empathy. My dad was softly spoken and didn't carry his honours and accomplishments for everyone to see.

The weird thing about grief, for me at least, was when each of my parents died, for a year or two afterwards I was pretty wildly brave - just willing to take life on.

History is cyclical, and it would be foolhardy to assume that the culture wars will never return.