Quotes from Steven Hall

My heart was deep space and my head was maths

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.

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 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.

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.

"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."

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.

I have notebooks and sketchbooks for ideas. I also have drawers full of envelopes covered in quick outlines, scenes or scraps of dialogue that I don't want to forget. I tend to grab whatever's to hand and just get the thing down before it's lost. It's not what you would call a streamlined system.