I'm not sure I believe in the whole 'ghost-afterlife' thing, but I think places are marked by people who have been there.

A man may plant a tree for a number of reasons. Perhaps he likes trees. Perhaps he wants shelter. Or perhaps he knows that someday he may need the firewood.

The process of writing is a little like madness, a kind of possession not altogether benign.

I like literature that you respond to in some way. You laugh, you cry, you turn the light on - that's great, it's eliciting a response by proxy.

Divination is a means of telling ourselves what we already know.

A little tantrum in real life seems so much bigger online.

Of course I didn't pioneer the use of food in fiction: it has been a standard literary device since Chaucer and Rabelais, who used food wonderfully as a metaphor for sensuality.