There's something with the physical size of America... American writers can write about America and it can still feel like a foreign country.

The most difficult book I wrote was the fourth in a series of linked children's books. It was like pulling teeth because the publisher wanted exactly the same but completely different. I'd much rather just do something completely different even if there's a risk of it going wrong.

If one book's done this well, you want to write another one that does just as well. There's that horror of the second novel that doesn't match up.

And this shows that sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth.

I don't remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.

The secret of contentment lay in ignoring many things completely.

You love someone, you've got to let something go.