When I was 16, I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines.

If I waited for perfection... I would never write a word.

Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet.

Forgiving men is so much easier than forgiving women.

It's rather useless to write a gripping narrative with nothing in it but climate change because novels are always about people even if they purport to be about rabbits or robots.

For me the experience of writing is really an experience of losing control.... I think it's very much like dreaming or like surfing. You go out there and wait for a wave, and when it comes it takes you somewhere and you don't know where it'll go.

A non-event ... is better to write about than an event, because with a non-event you can make up the meaning yourself, it means whatever you say it means.