I think about death a lot, I really do, because I can't believe I won't exist. It's the ego isn't it? I feel that I should retreat into a better form of Zen Buddhism than this kind of ego-dominated thing. But I don't know, I mean, I want to come back as a tree but I suspect that it's just not going to happen, is it?

I spent four years doing a doctorate in postmodern American literature. I can recognize it when I see it.

If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.

I think about death a lot, I really do, because I can't believe I won't exist. It's the ego isn't it? I feel that I should retreat into a better form of Zen Buddhism than this kind of ego-dominated thing. But I don't know, I mean, I want to come back as a tree but I suspect that it's just not going to happen, is it?

Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.'

Jennifer had never liked the pain of remembering what had happened, but for Theo it was the pain that kept Laura alive in his memory. He was afraid that if it ever began to heal she would disappear.

If people believed in eternal damnation they might not be seizing the day quite so much.