I don't tend to do category fiction very well. One of my problems when I was starting off was that publishers were hesitant to handle my books because they were never sure what I was going to do next.

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.

A thing named is a thing tamed.

Places do not lose their identity, however far one travels. It is the heart that begins to erode over time. The face in the hotel mirror seems blurred some mornings, as if by too many casual looks. By ten the sheets will be laundered, the carpet swept. The names on the hotel registers change as we pass. We leave no trace as we pass on. Ghostlike, we cast no shadow.

Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you up, heart and soul.

I sell dreams, small comforts, sweet harmless temptations to bring down a multitude of saints crashing among the hazels and nougatines

I think everybody has a secret life.