Their throats were bare for God.

That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.

Whether you want to call it God or the mystery of the cosmos doesn't matter to me.

I think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligation but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.

Great control and great discipline are necessary when you reach your own editing stage of the book, but in the early stages you have to be prepared to let anything happen and to get it wrong or go off track. The development of a character is not smooth or simple - it is as tricky as meeting someone new whom you would like to know better.

I'm always nervous about going home, just as I am nervous about rereading books that have meant a lot to me.

I think we still believe that ambition is for boys.