It turns up the heat under a narrative when you limit the characters in their movements or their freedoms.

I think it would be a shame for any writer to let their publishers in any way corral them into a single genre.

If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could.

Everybody's damaged by something.

So much as I enjoy big novels of epic sweep, I often find, say, if they follow several generations, by the third generation, I'm not caring about the people anymore.

And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts.

I'm very interested in how idealistic young people can get caught up in all sorts of systems of extreme belief, you know, whether it's cults or whether it's suicide bombers.