I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.

When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.

Death is the mother of beauty,” said Henry. “And what is beauty?” “Terror.

I've written only two novels, but they're both long ones, and they each took a decade to write.

What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?

My novels aren't really generated by a single conceptual spark; it's more a process of many different elements that come together unexpectedly over a long period of time.

In order for a long piece of work to engage a novelist over an extended period of time, it has to deal with questions that you find very important, that you're trying to work out.