I want to be a popular novelist who's also serious, or a serious novelist who's also very accessible.

The decision to write full time was made when I was twenty-eight years old and had just had two small plays accepted for BBC Radio.

If there is an abiding theme in 'The Pursuit of Happiness,' it is the idea that you come into the world already shaped by other people's past histories.

Because there is no meaning to be found in the arbitrary nature of things., It's all random. Just as space is blue. And birds fly through it.

We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.

All our stories are simultaneously unique and desperately similar, aren't they?

We don't like admitting this, but it is a key component of human existence: the fact that life has the potential for things both wondrous and horrific.