When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.

Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.

It interests me to imagine characters shifting from one situation and one location to another for whatever the circumstances may be.

Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying 'Listen to me'.

One hand, five homes. A lifetime in a fist.

She supposed that all those years of loving a person who was dishonest had taught her a few things.

The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. Style and personality are irrelevant. They can be formal or casual. They can be tall or short or fat or thin. They can obey the rules or break them. But they need to contain a charge. A live current, which shocks and illuminates.