Writing is the lonely sport of sad sacks.

As with most of my work, I started from the abstract, from research, building an intellectual model that slowly became internalized when the characters came alive. It's fascinating what happens to the model you've so assiduously assembled when characters are allowed to run rampant: things you thought essential are broken and other things are vastly improved.

I do like Twitter. Writing is a solitary pursuit, and it can get lonely. I like to go into Twitter for a short period of time, communicate with clever friends, and then switch it off. That's perfect for me.

As soon as you publish a book and the reader reads it, they're making an extension of your brain with their brain.

If you look at communal experiments in general for any amount of time, you'll find a lot of horrors: raped children, sexual slavery, eugenics experiments, on and on.

My childhood was as conventional as you could get.

Amor animi arbitrio sumitu, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.