Writing, and especially writing a novel, where you get to sit in a room by yourself with either a pen and a paper or a computer for a couple of years, is a very solitary occupation. You can read sales figures - a hundred thousand books sold, half a million books sold - but they are just numbers.

You see with your eyes. This means you can be misled by charm, by outward appearance. By webs of glamour, by surface pretences. I do not see with my eyes. I see good and I see evil. Nothing else.

It is neither fair nor unfair, Nobody Owens. It simply is

All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world: our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted. And even if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end.

Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed.

I think there are several aspects of our marraige we're going to have to work on." "Babes," he told her. "You're dead." "That's one of those aspects, obviously.

You can't trust other people. If it's important, you have to do it yourself.