Reading and writing are the same thing; it's just one's the more active and the other's the more passive. They flow into each other.

My heart, to put it more simply, got nostalgic for the present. Always a bad sign.

I try to write every day. I don't beat myself up about word counts, or how many hours are ticking by on the clock before I'm allowed to go and do something else. I just try to keep a hand in and work every single day, even if there are other demands or I'm on a book tour or have the flu or something, because then I keep my unconscious engaged with the book. Then I'm always a little bit writing, no matter what else I'm doing.

Every artist has limits. No one can do everything. It's impossible.

What I'm constantly striving for in my prose is clarity. So that, ideally, the writing will become so transparent that the reader will forget that the medium of communication is language.

Discomfort is very much part of my master plan.

You don’t have the slightest idea of what it means to write a scene and a character in the English language, with images and words chock full of received meaning.