It's now expected of me that I will defy expectation, so I really generally seem to be free to write what I want.

The kernel, the soul - let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances - is plagiarism.

My heart and the elevator, a plummet inside a plummet.

I'm not a sociologist, and the novel has often concerned itself with sociology. It's one of the generating forces that's made fiction interesting to people. But that's not my concern. I'm interested in psychology. And also certain philosophical questions about the world.

I've had the odd good luck of starting slowly and building gradually, something few writers are allowed anymore. As a result I've seen each of my books called the breakthrough. And each was, in its way.

Yes! I'm the slowest comic-book writer on Earth.

Good films demand to be looked at several times in order to be observed completely.