Real popular culture is folk art – coalminers‘ songs and so forth.

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don’t think so… I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.

I think the whole stigma of ‚black movies‘ is slowly being lost. When you look at movies like ’12 Years A Slave,‘ to ‚The Butler,‘ to ‚The Best Man,‘ to ‚Ride Along,‘ to even ‚Think Like a Man‘ from last year – these movies are just good movies.

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

I’m mainstream.

Pop music will never be low brow.

The most watched programme on the BBC, after the news, is probably ‚Doctor Who.‘ What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon, who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe.

The celebrity-chef thing, even at its worst, its most annoying, its silliest, its goofiest, its most egregious and cynical, has been a good thing.

Popular culture is a contradiction in terms. If it’s popular, it’s not culture.

I think everyone’s inherently snobbish. Things that are very popular are not taken seriously, because the snobbish side of one says, ‚Well, if everyone likes it it can’t be that good.‘ Whereas if only I and a couple of other people like it, then it must be really something special.