It seems to me that the basic plot of all historical novels is a romance swept aside by history.

The reason I start a novel is because there's something that excites me and I want to explore it.

Mystery, investigation, false leads, solution - we associate that structure with genre fiction, but it exists in our real lives, too. There's no reason why literary fiction shouldn't be able to acknowledge that and make it fresh.

I'm very finicky about when I'm in the right mood to write. So most days, I find some excuse not to do anything.

So intense was his sexual frustration that it had begun to feel like a life-threatening illness: testicular gout, libidinal gangrene.

Statistically, you don't have much chance of becoming president if you're not tall and fairly handsome or at least conventional-looking.

I always save a huge book for a flight, because then you read it at both airports and on the plane and by the time you get home you're a quarter of the way through and it doesn't feel so unmanageable any more.