It is very hard to trace the effect of words on a life.

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.

A novel is written not to be judged, but experienced.

I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. The Gathering did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time.

To be able to have the space to sit down and write has always been my central policy.

No woman that I know is capable of leaving her child down for thirty seconds. She can't walk away without making sure that everything is absolutely as secure and safe for her child as can be.

And, in fact, this is the tale that I would love to write: history is such a romantic place, with its jarveys and urchins and side-buttoned boots. If it would just stay still, I think, and settle down. If it would just stop sliding around in my head.