On the other hand, I mean, that is what writers have always been supposed to do, was to rely on their own devices and to - I mean, writing is a lonely business.

No money, holes in my socks, living off oatmeal.

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.

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

Anything is grand if it's done on a large enough scale.

The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I’ve read so often that I’ve internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out.

Character, to me, is the life's blood of fiction