I hated childhood, and spent it sitting behind a book waiting for adulthood to arrive.

I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at

I don't want to say I hear voices; well, actually I do hear voices, but I don't think it's supernatural. I think it's just that when characters are given enough texture and backbone, then lo and behold, they stand on their own.

I love to think about chance - about how one little overheard word, one pebble in a shoe, can change the universe.

Something was wrong with a world where people came and went so easily.

I hated childhood, and spent it sitting behind a book waiting for adulthood to arrive.

...if you catalogue grudges, anything looks bad.