I'm not reclusive at all. Just private.

When I read obituaries I always note the age of the deceased. Automatically I relate this figure to my own age. Four years to go, I think. Nine more years. Two years and I'm dead. The power of numbers is never more evident than when we use them to speculate on the time of our dying.

In my experience, writing a novel tends to create its own structure, its own demands, its own language, its own ending.

Brilliant people never think of the lives they smash, being brilliant.

Perhaps we've invented conspiracies for our own psychic well-being, to heal ourselves.

Everything's a scandal. Dying's a scandal. But we all do it.

Talent is more erotic when it's wasted.