Whoever would write books? It's suffering as well as greatly satisfying. And certainly there's suffering in the sense that you don't know for a long time how to do it.

Inevitably we start by thinking that if our work is any good, we'll get money. It's as we would if you started up a business or if you work in another profession.

Censorship is all around us, I don't think it's innate.

I think that inevitably, the trouble our characters go through is a kind of metaphor for what's happening in ourselves.

In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.

We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.

There is a lot of censorship about writing that's exerted from all directions, from families or governments and society, even the fear of being offensive in some way.