We have that illusion that we are 'deciding' what to make a character do, in order to 'convey our message' or something like that. But, at least in my experience, you are often more like a river-rafting guide who's been paid a bonus to purposely steer your clients into the roughest possible water.

For me, when I'm coming up to a place where I have to make somebody up, it's almost like driving and taking your hands off the wheel.

I feel that there is nothing that can happen to a person that is banal. Everything that happens to us is interesting.

I think when you get to export your creative impulse into something, it kind of lessens that busy energy that can be so confrontational and pissy.

If you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world, then the positive valences - where things turn out better than you thought they would - ought to be in there somewhere, too.

Twitter is a deliberate abstention. Somehow I hate the idea of there always being, in the back of my mind, this little voice saying: 'Oh, I should tweet about this.'

When somebody you've known for 20 years, and with whom you have a full context, winks at you or whatever, it can be huge. I think in a sense what you're trying to re-create in fiction is that.