I'm interested in where we are, where we're going, where we've come from.

The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but no one writes a novel to dramatically illustrate what everybody already knows.

My greatest pleasure is to invent. My continual mad ambition is to make something true and beautiful that never existed in the world before.

One has to be able to twist and change and distort characters, play with them like clay, so everything fits together. Real people don't permit you to do that.

I don't think you have the right to shout about other people's private life.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

Being famous as a writer is like being famous in a village. It's not really any very heady fame.