Steven Hall

“I'm such a magpie. I'll get halfway through one thing and pick up something else. I always have 5 or 6 books open and spine-up by my bed: it's like a row of tents. I don't finish nearly as many books as I should.”

“I'd love a signed first edition of 'City of Glass' by Paul Auster. My favourite book of all time.”

“Sometimes, I seem to be only able to actually move and get going with things on the razor edge of possibly still managing whatever it is I'm supposed to do. I think, secretly, I might even get a buzz out of it. Maybe I crave the adrenalin like some sort of crazy gambler high on risking everything on the turn of a card.”

“I'm a bit suspicious of people who are narrow in their musical tastes.”

“When I'm out and about, I'll text or email myself from my phone. A smart phone is a great tool for a writer.”

“Without a story there is no meaning.And the nature of the meaning depends on the nature of the story.To understand this is to understand the true power of stories.And so, to control the stories, to be the one doing the telling...Well now, wouldn't that be quite a thing...?”

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a palaeontologist. I wanted to dig up dinosaurs.”

“I'm excited about how books work in a digital age. When you read a book, unlike a film, you are decoding symbols in order to 'see' the story, so it is collaborative in a way that a film can never be.”

“The calmer and more well-ordered my desktop is, the more I can convince myself I'm on top of things.”

“Beer. It always seems like such a good idea at the time, doesn't it? What's worse is beer seems like an even better idea after you've had some beer.”

“'Homeward Bound.' I find myself listening to that tune a lot when I'm traveling. Sitting in a railway station, wanting to go home, carrying all your stuff with you.”

“Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over a period of seven years. That means there's not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.”

“try to visualize all the streams of human interaction, of communication. All those linking streams flowing in and between people, through text, pictures, spoken words and TV commentaries, streams through shared memories, casual relations, witnessed events, touching pasts and futures, cause and effect. Try to see this immense latticework of lakes and flowing streams, see the size and awesome complexity of it. This huge rich environment. This waterway paradise of all information and identities and societies and selves.”

“I think there's a danger of becoming too familiar with things, isn't there? That you kind of, when you're used to seeing the same things every day, you see those things come what may, and you don't see maybe the interesting things just slightly out of view behind them.”

“I don't listen to Nirvana plugged anymore. I think there's a whole group of people who have semi-forgotten that Nirvana used electric guitars because of the 'Unplugged' album. It's so great.”

“There's no way to really preserve a person when they've gone and that's because whatever you write down it's not the truth; it's just a story. Stories are all we're ever left with in our head or on paper: clever narratives put together from selected facts, legends, well edited tall tales with us in the starring roles.”

“It's a sad fact that most people can't even spot a story when they see one. Most people don't know that stories aren't confined by the covers of books or by half-hour slots on TV. The world is made of stories. The world is driven by stories. When a sunburned-friend tells you about their holiday, it's not a straight list of everything that happened to them - it's a story, an anecdote with a plot, a beginning, a middle and an end. Each one of their holiday snaps is a story too. When you're making a decision, and you imagine the possible outcomes - what are you doing if not telling yourself a story? History is a story. Society is a story. Countries are stories. Your plans are stories. Your desires are stories. Your own memories are stories - narratives selected, trimmed and packaged by the hidden machinery in your mind. Human beings are story engines. We have to be - to understand stories is to understand the world.”

“Twitter is incredibly useful. It's a great example of how the Internet is changing the way we engage with information and text. Above all else, this change in the nature of engagement is fascinating for me as a writer.”

“o There’s no way to really preserve a person when they’ve gone and that’s because whatever you write down it’s not the truth, it’s just a story. Stories are all we’re ever left with in our head or on paper: clever narratives put together from selected facts, legends, well edited tall tales with us in the starring roles.”

“He was a great man, my granddad, a very calm, logical and methodical guy. I suppose I'm trying to be more like him as I get older.”