I had huge ambition for literature. I don't see the point of doing anything if you don't have ambition for it.

Always in my books, I like to throw that rogue element into a stable situation and then see what happens.

London is a small place, and it is very incestuous. People know where you live. Everybody is sort of on top of each other.

This hole in my heart is in the shape of you. No one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?

The only sex education my mother ever gave me was the injunction: 'Never let a boy touch you down there.' I had no idea what she meant. She seemed to be referring to my knees.

As a writer, if you're prepared to work from your own wound, you're allowing people into the most vulnerable parts of yourself.

It’s better to think of my life like that— part miracle, part madness. It’s better if I accept that I can’t control any of the things that matter. My life is a trail of shipwrecks and set-sails. There are no arrivals, no destinations; there are only sandbanks and shipwreck; then another boat, another tide.