Her death would leave me scattered, talking to chairs and pillows. Don't let us die, I want to cry out to that fifth-century sky ablaze with mystery and spiral light. Let us both live forever, in sickness and health, feebleminded, doddering, toothless, liver-spotted, dim-sighted, hallucinating. Who decides these things? What is out there? Who are you?

I think my work is influenced by the fact that we're living in dangerous times. If I could put it in a sentence, in fact, my work is about just that: living in dangerous times.

Stories are consoling, fiction is one of the consolation prizes for having lived in the world.

There's a curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists...Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated.

When my head is in the typewriter the last thing on my mind is some imaginary reader. I don't have an audience; I have a set of standards.

Clouds are no deterrent. Clouds intensify the drama, trap and shape the light.

Off-camera lives are unverifiable.