For although a man is judged by his actions, by what he has said and done, a man judges himself by what he is willing to do, by what he might have said, or might have done—a judgment that is necessarily hampered, not only by the scope and limits of his imagination, but by the ever-changing measure of his doubt and self-esteem.

I really wanted to write an adventure story, a murder-mystery that was set during the gold-rush years in New Zealand.

Love cannot be reduced to a catalogue of reasons why, and a catalogue of reasons cannot be put together into love.

I have observed that male writers tend to get asked what they think and women what they feel," she says. "In my experience, and that of a lot of other women writers, all of the questions coming at them from interviewers tend to be about how lucky they are to be where they are – about luck and identity and how the idea struck them. The interviews much more seldom engage with the woman as a serious thinker, a philosopher, as a person with preoccupations that are going to sustain them for their lifetime.

I often feel intellectually frustrated when I'm in a position where I'm not moving forward; when I'm not enquiring about something.

I see disappointment as something small and aggregate rather than something unified or great. With a little effort, every failure can be turned into something good.

Reason is no match for desire: when desire is purely and powerfully felt, it becomes a kind of reason of its own.