Narration is as much a part of human nature as breath and the circulation of the blood.

I think there are a lot more important things than art in the world. But not to me.

…words have been all my life, all my life--this need is like the Spider's need who carries before her a huge Burden of Silk which she must spin out--the silk is her life, her home, her safety--her food and drink too--and if it is attacked or pulled down, why, what can she do but make more, spin afresh, design anew….

Books that change you, even later in life, give you a kind of electrical shock as the world takes a different shape.

You can understand a lot about yourself by working out which fairytale you use to present your world to yourself in.

Don't you find it rather heavy, to have everything really in front of you – all the people who are going to matter, whom you haven't met yet, all the choices you are going to have to make, everything you might achieve, and all the possible failures – unreal now? The future flaps round my head like a cloud of midges.

In England, everyone believes if you think, then you don't feel. But all my novels are about joining together thinking and feeling.