Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.

When I went to Hong Kong, I knew at once I wanted to write a story set there.

You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back.

Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.

I'm constantly running across people who have never heard of books I think they should read.

Many aspects of the writing life have changed since I published my first book, in the 1960s. It is more corporate, more driven by profits and marketing, and generally less congenial - but my day is the same: get out of bed, procrastinate, sit down at my desk, try to write something.

Reading alters the appearance of a book. Once it has been read, it never looks the same again, and people leave their individual imprint on a book they have read. Once of the pleasures of reading is seeing this alteration on the pages, and the way, by reading it, you have made the book yours.