Good writing is always new.

Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.

I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.

I'm not very interested in myself. I do have a deep moral belief that you should always look out at other things and not be self-centred.

No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.

They took to silence. They touched each other without comment and without progression. A hand on a hand, a clothed arm, resting on an arm. An ankle overlapping an ankle, as they sat on a beach, and not removed. One night they fell asleep, side by side... He slept curled against her back, a dark comma against her pale elegant phrase.

Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.