I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work. But the third is desperation. I'm not really fit for anything else, or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted.

The readers are the ones who let us live our dreams. I try to write books which are really compelling - that you'd take on vacation and rather than going out, you'd read in your hotel room because you had to find out what happened. Hopefully that's what readers are responding to.

This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth.

I'm thinking of taking up golf, but the idea of spending time with golfers frightens me.

In short, the satisfaction of creating, not necessarily the process, always lifts my heart.

I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness.

We all think that we are uniquely complex, that no one can see what we are thinking - yet we also believe that we have the rare ability to read others. This fascinates me at the moment.