Detachment is what interests me, seeing how people couldn't have been any other way, how they were the product of forces that they had no control over.

The Booker 2011 is of no more interest to me than the world heavyweight championship, which I'm not going to win either. It's irrelevant.

The whole Melrose series is an attempt to tell the truth, and is based on the idea that there is some salutary or liberating power in telling the truth.

No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too big if it's cherished.

The first book I fell in love with was 'Little Toot,' the story of an adorable tugboat operating out of New York Harbor.

Well, the attractive thing about the subject of happiness is that it is notoriously difficult to write.

I'm not trying to uncover the facts of my life but to discover the dramatic truth of the situations I was in.