I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

The sound of words in a novel is a pretty amazing thing, and I am concerned with the sound of every word I write.

I would pretend when I was a child that I was Charlotte Brontë, because I'd read Jane Eyre when I was ten and, although I didn't understand it, I loved the idea that this woman had written a book. I wanted to be her.

I know that the fantastic amount of profit that people want to make on anything is damaging. And that none of us seem able to resist it.

One of the things reading does, it makes your loneliness manageable if you are an essentially lonely person.

The thing to remember about the Declaration of Independence and the profession of freedom is that it was written by people who were quite free and who were surrounded by people who were not free. The people who wrote the Declaration of Independence were ventriloquists really. The obsession with freedom makes no sense when it applies to them.

For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full of pain, but I like that. It's a reality, and I just accept it as something not to be avoided. This is the life I have. This is the life I write about.