I never wanted to be mainstream as a writer, but look at what's happened.

The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.

I do wish I could write like some of the American women, who can be clever and heartfelt and hopeful; people like Lorrie Moore and Jennifer Egan. But Ireland messed me up too much, I think, so I can't.

I think you know everything at eight. But is is hidden from you, sealed up, in a way you have to cut yourself open to find.

Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

Sometimes I will spend two or three days not speaking to anyone outside of the immediate family when they come home, and then I find that I've been emailing like fury. Once you give in to that silence, it's quite nice.

If you try to control it too much, the book is dead. You have to let it fall apart quite early on and let it start doing its own thing. And that takes nerve, not to panic that the book you were going to write is not the book you will have at the end of the day.