The appeal of writing is primarily the investigation of mystery.

There is nothing "ordinary" about reality.

I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, mediated nature. Telling stories, choosing an appropriate language with which to tell the story: This seems to me quintessentially human, one of the great adventures of our species.

I was trying not to be happy, hopeful. I did not believe I deserved happiness or even hope, if you knew my soul.

When I'm really involved or getting towards the end of a novel, I can write for up to ten hours a day. At those times, it's as though I'm writing a letter to someone I'm desperately in love with.

Stories come to us as wraiths requiring precise embodiments.

How fascinating to a child are words: the shapes, sounds, textures and mysterious meanings of words; the way words link together into elastic patterns called "sentences." And these sentences into paragraphs, and beyond.