It's a mind going over things, revisiting things, maybe trying to refine the original perception. You have to keep going a thing over in order to make sense off it.

I've written books that have taken me fifteen years, from first sentence to last, and some that only take three or four months.

Most people are participating in the grand adventure of living with one another.

It became a habit of mine never to leave the house without a pencil in my pocket.

It would be a terrible world if everyone was an artist. Nothing would get done!

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was 'Crime and Punishment'. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days... I said, 'If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.'

I don't like talking about my work at all. I find it very difficult. I never know what to say. It's too close to me, and there's so many things happening unconsciously while I'm working that I'm not aware of, and people will point these things out to me, and I'll say, "That's interesting." But I don't know what to make of it.