Life should be embraced like a lover.

The imagination conjures gifts; what the ungrateful, unsentimental part of the mind has to do is to unwrap them, find fault with them, see them for what they are and then alter them.

Listen to the criticisms and preferences of your trusted "first readers".

Perhaps, all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female.

When you've finished a piece of work you've had a kind of love affair with it.

A novel usually takes me two years. A year to research and plan and dream. Then a year to write.

Never be satisfied with a first draft. In fact, never be satisfied with your own stuff at all, until you're certain it's as good as your finite powers can enable it to be.