Avoid prologues: they can be ­annoying, especially a prologue ­following an introduction that comes after a foreword.

I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.

A pen connects you to the paper. It definitely matters.

My purpose is to entertain and please myself. I feel that if I am entertained, then there will be enough other readers who will be entertained, too.

A man can be in two different places and he will be two different men. Maybe if you think of more places he will be more men, but two is enough for now.

I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don’t you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.

I don't have any of the modern stuff. I don't have e-mail. I don't have a computer!