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

If I want to feel as if I'm being sucked down a fathomless gloomy tunnel for hours and hours then I have a complete set of Schopenhauer at home.

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

You couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t hate at least something. Indeed, perhaps you couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t hate almost everything.

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.

I hate going back over what I've written. It makes me feel physically sick.

I was always determined that one way or another I would force a book on the world, even if I had to resort to writing one about a tabby cat who solves mysteries.