Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out.

I barely can go shopping for clothes. I find it difficult to walk into stores. The whole thing bores me so much.

Stories happen only to those who are able to tell them, someone once said. In the same way, perhaps, experiences present themselves only to those who are able to have them.

Chance is an element of life. What I try to do is study what I call the mechanics of reality as carefully as I can.

I've found that writing novels is an all-absorbing experience - both physical and mental - and I have to do it every day in order to keep the rhythm, to keep myself focused on what I'm doing.

Surely it is an odd way to spend your life - sitting alone in a room with a pen in your hand, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, struggling to put words on pieces of paper in order to give birth to what does not exist - except in your head. Why on earth would anyone want to do such a thing? The only answer I have ever been able to come up with is: because you have to, because you have no choice.

Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out.