When I'm writing books, something weird happens; and the result is the books contain a large amount of what you could call 'supernaturalism.' As a writer, I find I need that to explain the world I'm writing about.

I've never read anything so badly written that got published. It made 'Twilight' look like 'War and Peace.'

I had a very difficult relationship with my father, which ended up okay, but there were many difficult years.

Sometimes when you finish a book, you don't know quite what you've got.

One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity. If you can make them sufficiently uncomfortable, they frequently respond by doing what you need them to do in the spirit of setting people free or ceasing arrests, which has worked time and time again with PEN.

We are described into corners, and then we must describe ourselves out of corners.

You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.