I feel I grew up in a different century than I live in. I think most of them are changes for the good.

As a writer, I write to see. If I knew how it would end, I wouldn't write. It's a process of discovery.

I've never written anything that hasn't been in my mind for a long time - seven or eight years.

I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television.

I'd much prefer to write more quickly.

I think that each of us inhabits a private world that others cannot see. The only difference between the writer and the reader is that the writer is able to dramatise that private world.

Yes, though I have nothing but gratitude for my upbringing in the church.