Becoming a writer is not a 'career decision' like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don't choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you're not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.

The real is always way ahead of what we can imagine.

Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can't be done.

There are two kinds of typical days. There's the typical day when I'm writing a novel, and there's the typical day when I'm not.

In my books, there are a lot of people stuck in rooms. Or, conversely, out in the wide open. It seems that, in a funny way, when people are cooped up in rooms they are freer than when they are wandering about in the world.

As long as there's one person to believe it, there's no story that can't be true.

When you're young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound.