Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

It's good fun to create an unpredictable character. When he comes into the room, I don't know what he's going to do - I have to find my way.

Present-day Spain translates as many books into Spanish, annually, as the Arab world has translated into Arabic in the past 1,100 years.

Richard's bookshelves weren't alphabetized. He never had time to alphabetize them. He was always too busy- looking for books he couldn't find.

We all have names we don't know about.

Language leads a double life - and so does the novelist. You chat with family and friends, you attend to your correspondence, you consult menus and shopping lists, you observe road signs, and so on. Then you enter your study, where language exists in quite another form - as the stuff of patterned artifice.

People are always talking on their phones, or looking at their phones, because they don't want to be alone with their thoughts.