I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don't have a strong visual imagination.

Writer's block! It doesn't exist. You just long for ideas to go away so you have an idea of peace.

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.

I think you can get a sort of intensity and an edginess offering nine stories in a book. Competing versions of things.

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

I did think of becoming a priest quite late on, when other boys were thinking of knocking over fences and going out with girls. I would have made a very good bishop: nice housekeeper, nice clothes - god, the clothes.