Sure, go ahead, simulate life, using only ink and paper.

I suspect any serious reader has a first great book, just the way anybody has a first kiss.

She will remain sane and she will live as she was meant to live, richly and deeply, among others of her kind, in full possession and command of her gifts.

Sure, go ahead, simulate life, using only ink and paper.

A certain slightly cruel disregard for the feelings of living people is simply part of the package. I think a writer, if hes any good, is not an entirely benign entity in the world.

Here is the world, and you live in it, and are grateful. You try to be grateful.

Like my hero Virginia Woolf, I do lack confidence. I always find that the novel I'm finishing, even if it's turned out fairly well, is not the novel I had in my mind. I think a lot of writers must negotiate this, and if they don't admit it, they're not being honest.