Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.

Here we go again. Always a few drinks, but sometimes even sober, we play the unhappiness game; endlessly round and round. Ding dong. Tighter and tighter. On and on. Push me pull you. Come here and i'll tell you how much i hate you. Hang on a minute while i leave you. All the while we know we are missing the point, whatever the point used to be.

Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.

When you find yourself alone, or in a transition, you dream more. These are also the times when you read books.

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.

I love the characters not knowing everything and the reader knowing more than them. There's more mischief in that and more room for seriousness, too.

You write a book and you finish the book. That's your job done, right? You win the Booker and you have a whole new job. You have to be the thing, right? So instead of writing the story, you somehow are the story. And that I found that sort of terrible.