If your life just falls apart early on, you can put it together again. Its the people who are always on the brink of crisis who dont hit bottom who are in trouble.

The writing day can be, in some ways, too short, but it's actually a long series of hours, for months at a time, and there is a stillness there.

People whose lives are upside down often read fiction. When you're not sure where you'll end up or how you are going to be, and you're looking for some way forward, fiction is a great friend.

One of the reasons I write is I like being surprised

For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.

I can't think of anything you might say about Irish people that is absolutely true.

A drinker does not exist. Whatever they say, it is just the drink talking.