People always want to identify a writer with their protagonist.

I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who absolutely demands to be read a second, third, and fourth time. I admire her great courage in leaving so much unsaid and asking the reader to really engage her brain.

The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need things to be certain.

I don't want to get hung up on what 'people,' that nebulous mass, think about me. That's the way to unhappiness, I think.

I guess there's a sort of cycle with writing books. There's all the researching and then the imagining and writing - which is the real job - and then there's always a period when the book comes out and you have to lift your head and venture out.

A new car is not going to change your life.

Writing is a deeply immersive experience. When the words are flying, the house could be burgled and I wouldn’t notice. I have a low boredom threshold and I like intensity – writing is a way of escaping the quotidian.