All novelists write in a different way, but I always write in longhand and then do two versions of typescript on a computer.

Mere fact has no chance of being formally perfect. It will get in the way, it will be all elbows.

People look at fame and feel deprived if they haven't got it, feeling that this is a basic, almost a human right, a civil right. And also feel the same way about wealth, I suppose - why haven't I got it?

Belief is otiose; reality is sufficiently awesome as it stands.

Let me assure you that the humourless as a bunch don't just not know what's funny, they don't know what's serious. They have no common sense, either, and shouldn't be trusted with anything.

Each life is a game of chess that went to hell on the seventh move(...)

One of the unseen benefits of having children is that they deliver you from your own selfishness. There's no going back.