...and there was nothing to do except to wait and to hurt.

But I said that you could still want something that is very unlikely to happen.

I don't mean that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, On the contrary; novels can perform two functions and most perform only one.

..and only sticks and stones can break my bones.

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.

Humour and high seriousness... Perfect bedfellows, I think. Though I usually phrase it in terms of comedy and darkness. Comedy without darkness rapidly becomes trivial. And darkness without comedy rapidly becomes unbearable.

Being clever was when you looked at how things were and used the evidence to work out something new.