I'm an ex-Catholic priest. I have such a complex relationship to Catholicism. On the one hand, if I called myself a Catholic it would have to be a very unorthodox one, as I just don't believe all of the teachings of the Church. But on the other hand, I'm an educated man because the Catholic Church educated me. It gave me something that is really important to me. So I always think about my faith. I always have it, and sometimes I can't talk about it, and sometimes I can. I am like an adolescent in that way. Teens are asking questions: who is God and what does it mean to have faith?

It's a complex thing when you're writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has to be a dance between the conscious and the unconscious. I bring my best instincts to my work. For instance - and I come by this naturally, or I think I do - I am a very good judge of character.

I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.

I think writing books is a way for me to work out certain issues. I write about what matters to me, always.

If you want to be a writer, you don't want to live in a comfortable place.

But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.

You are thirst and thirst is all I know