Writing a novel resembles a journey with only the sketchiest of maps.

...beauty, she had discovered occupied a narrow band. Ugliness, on the hand, had infinite variation.

However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I've always been. Hard to explain that to the young. we may look truly reptilian, but we're not a separate tribe.

I do have a very strong sense that most of the terrible things in life happen suddenly and unpredictably, and certainly can sweep you off in different directions, and that is always of interest to a novelist.

Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed.

The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.

None of us really either know the circumstances of our death or are likely to exert as much control over it as we would like to, but we can certainly have a little more say in it if we are terminally ill than we have at the moment. That's the element of dignity, but sure, life is very hard to organise even when you are fit and healthy.