I'm with Milton and the Rolling Stones: I don't find the Devil an unsympathetic character. But in any case, my fiction is populated as much by people who do good as it is by those who do bad. I'm interested in imaginatively accommodating as much of the human as possible, for which you need both moral extremes and everything in between.

Time, you'll be pleased to know--and since one must start somewhere--was created in creation. The question What was there before creation? is meaningless. Time is a property of creation, therefore before creation there was no before creation.

One day the ordinariness will be terminally punctuated by the extraordinary full stop of death.

I'm too conceited for therapy.

The only animal from which humans have nothing to learn, in fact, is the sheep. Humans have already learned everything the sheep's got to teach.

No artist knows everything... but since every artist knows more than he can tell, all art is lying by omission.

That's what happens when you keep a secret from someone you love: you start to hate them for allowing you to prove your own willingness to deceive them.