My kids are supposed to live till they are one hundred. You don't have to have a perfect house or a perfect relationship with your child or a perfect child, and you yourself do not have to be perfect.

I’m really lucky with the people around me. They know me, so they don’t confuse the issues really. They know what a book is and they know who I am and they know the difference between the two.

I think young children in the Western middle classes are objects of incredible anxiety.

Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your story is, or how "made up": what matters is its necessity.

The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.

I am interested in silences

One of the reasons I write is I like being surprised