There are things that can't be said, because it's hard to have to know them.

I was at the tail end of the family. The next brother along was already seven years older than me. I remember growing up by myself, playing games by myself.

All we need to do, reader or writer, from first line to final page, is be as open as a book, and be alive to the life in language - on all its levels.

Every great narrative is at least two narratives, if not more - the thing that is on the surface and then the things underneath which are invisible.

I don't want a tombstone. You could carve on it 'She never actually wanted a tombstone.'

We'd never expect to understand a piece of music on one listen, but we tend to believe we've read a book after reading it just once.

[Property] is a brilliant, chillingly revelatory piece of fiction, a work of craft, economy and such good merciless observation-one of those rare, crucial novels illuminating a history we think we know and understand so that after we've read it we'll never forget its truths.