“I do not use profanity in my novels. My characters all go to church.”

“I think there should be more black characters, and more of all kinds of characters, in fiction. Almost all of the main characters in my novel Anansi Boys are black. And there are black characters in featured roles in all the other novels except Stardust and Coraline. (Something I was happy to see was not the case in Henry Selick’s film.)”

“One of them is probably Michael, I think. All I have to do to find my dad is go to church.”

“Novels for me are how I find out what's going on in my own head. And so that's a really useful and indeed critical thing to do when you do as many of these other things as I do.”

“My sister having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going.”

“The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.”