And the flavor of Pippa's kiss--bittersweet and strange--stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

If I'm not working, I'm not happy. That's it. That's the prerequisite for me for happiness.

I think it's hard to write about children and to have an idea of innocence.

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

But it's for every writer to decide his own pace, and the pace varies with the writer and the work

There's an expectation these days that novels - like any other consumer product - should be made on a production line, with one dropping from the conveyor belt every couple of years.

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.