Novelists get to direct the perfect films. We get to cast every part. We dress the set exactly as we wish.

Life is fundamentally up for grabs

I got into underground comics fairly early on and kind of wandered away from the superhero stuff, but I was an art student and I was drawing a lot as a kid.

I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human 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.

Apologies aren't something you want to get in the habit of practicing in the mirror

One of the things that novels have tended not to concentrate on over the centuries is the fact that people read books.