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

When I was in my 20s it did occur to me that there was something perverted about an attitude that thought that killing somebody was a minor offence compared to kissing somebody.

When you're in danger of losing a thing it becomes precious and when it's around us, it's in tedious abundance and we take it for granted as if we're going to live forever, which we're not.

My father was very outwardly religious.

The rosary was said every evening. I always liked that sentence about the medieval Churches, that they were the Bibles of the poor. The Church was my first book and I would think it is still my most important book.

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

I think fiction is a very serious thing, that while it is fiction, it is also a revelation of truth, or facts.