I write what I call 'novels of consolation' for people who are bright and sophisticated.

My novels are about the European reality, not about chases. You want chases, get somebody else's books.

Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don't tell them.

Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower - translated from a French saying

I don't inflict horrors on readers.

I read very little contemporary anything.

I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past.