I think fiction lends itself to messiness rather than the ideal, and plays well with the ironies surrounding what happens versus what should happen.

It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.

Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

If you have to read to cheer yourself up, read biographies of writers who went insane.

“One Minus One’”and “Barcelona, 1975” are more or less autobiographical.

It is important to find a publisher and equally important not to be noticed until your third or fourth book.

While historians may go on attempting grand, sweeping and defining narratives, they work in a time when readers know that another narrative always lies in wait, and that the more intelligent an historian is, the more tentative and self-scrutinizing the tone.