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.

I have no one to blame for the construction for myself, of course, but I'm always surprised and slightly sulky when I realizeВ people are buying the whole thing.

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.

Writing is a private discipline, in a field of companions.

With a book you can read the same paragraph four times. You can go back to page 21 when you're on page 300. You can't do that with film. It just charges ahead.

But the day I can't shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I'm washed up for keeps.

However appalling to consider, however tedious to enact, every novel requires furniture, whether it is to be named or unnamed, for the characters will be unable to remain in standing position for the duration of the story.