I suddenly had an idea of how adults can hold on to a feeling for very long periods of time, long after the event is finished, long after cards have been sent and apologies made and everyone else had moved on. Adults were pack rats of old, useless emotions

Writing a novel is always complicated, it's not like you snap your fingers and go, 'Ah, I know what I'll write'. For me, a lot of the time, I have to write and as I write, I learn about the story.

I had trouble listening to adults who didn't really mean anything that they said; it was as if their language poured into my ears only to drain right out a little spigot in the back of my head.

A novel is a tricky thing to map.

A text is evolutionary by its very nature.

Part of being a writer is knowing when what you write is really bad.

Do you ever get the feeling like you already know the entire contents of the universe somewhere inside of your head, as if you were born with a complete map of this world already grafted onto the folds of your cerebellum and you are just spending your entire life figuring out how to access this map?