Even as a young child, I was a lover of books and of the spaces in which, as indeed in a sacred temple, books might safely reside.

If Shakespeare's great plays are variants of stories, even novels, you can see how each character is telling his story from his perspective; each is vying with the others for dominance, but in the end, in tragedy, most of these voices will die, to be replaced by the yet more vigorous voice of a younger generation.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

Yes, 'Black Girl/White Girl' might be described as a 'coming-of-age' novel, at least for the survivor Genna. It is also intended as a comment on race relations in America more generally: we are 'roommates' with one another, but how well do we know one another?

The - the sort of thing that I want to do is to strike a resonant chord of universality in other people, which is best done by fiction.

The books I read I do enjoy, very much; otherwise I wouldn't read them. Most of them are for review, for the New York Review of Books, and substantial.

Writing! The activity for which the only adequate bribe is the possibility of suicide, one day.