People have libraries at home, they have bookshelves, they have CDs. And they sort of try, people try to bring great artists into their lives, into their physical houses and sort of live with portions of them. But they're not really deeply engaging with them.

Only when you have completed a novel, or a story, can you return to the beginning and revise or rewrite.

Art is about freedom of expression, and should not be molded to fit any propaganda or lofty ideal.

I was brought up to be sympathetic toward others.

My role models were childless: Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, George Eliot, the Brontes.

I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called 'culture' - and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species.

These novels [Zombie, My Sister, My Love] are so special to me. [I don't expect that they will have nearly the same significance to anyone else.] They represent a kind of fiction I would love to pursue more or less constantly, but dare not.