To have too much time is not good, you have to force yourself. And human beings aren't meant for true freedom. I've learned that, having had it.

If someone doesn't like your fiction, it's really insulting.

I think talent has a huge amount to do with concentration, concentration rather than the athletic ability of your neurons. If you can concentrate on an esoteric piece of math, how can you think about the rest of your life? That's why people can leave their car keys in the gutter; they're in the midst of obsession and concentration.

I've written five books, a book every three years. I'm fairly lazy and it doesn't take that much...people who are not lazy are Isaac Asimov.

Art is so personal. I'm very comforted by the fact that certain movies that I love, other people hate. Certain books that I love, other people hate. You can't please everybody.

To have too much time is not good, you have to force yourself. And human beings aren't meant for true freedom. I've learned that, having had it.

There are some advantages to being a writer: you do generally get better as you get older. I think I understand things better. When I was a kid, I was kind of guessing at the emotion. Now I'm interested in writing more difficult books, books that confront the facts of life, of death and dying and failure - the majority of life. You write outwardly imaginative books when you're younger. When you're older you apply imagination to internal experience.