The past beats inside me like a second heart.

I read Nietzsche when I was a teenager and then I went back to reading him when I was in my thirties, and his voice spoke directly to me. Nietzsche is such a superb literary artist.

I like ideas. I find them more exciting than human behavior for the most part.

The telephone ringing gave me a dreadful start. I have never got used to this machine, the way it crouches so malevolently, ready to start clamouring for attention when you least expect it, like a mad baby.

The trouble with you, Vic," he said, "is that you think of the world as a sort of huge museum with too many visitors allowed in.

With the crime novels, its delightful to have protagonists I can revisit in book after book. Its like having a fictitious family.

The novel is resilient, and so are novelists.