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.

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

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.

I do not think we remember our family in any real sense. We live in them instead

Writing is not my problem, it is my solution.

I am a trembling mess from hip to knee. There is a terrible heat, a looseness in my innards that makes me want to dig my fists between my thighs. It is a confusing feeling - somewhere between diarrhoea and sex - this grief that is almost genital.

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.