A little bit of one story joins onto an idea from another, and hey presto, . . . not old tales but new ones. Nothing comes from nothing.

Nobody wants to read a 600 page book in which the author is fabulous throughout.

I used to write a monthly column for the 'New York Times' syndicate. But I stopped because I found it really hard to have one extreme opinion a month. I don't know how these columnists have two or three ideas a week; I was having difficulty having 12 things to say a year.

All art began as sacred art, you know? I mean, all painting began as religious painting. All writing began as religious writing.

The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes both - usually both. The difficulty in these stories is that if you write about everywhere you can end up writing about nowhere.

We live in an age where the rate of change has been colossal. Colossal. Almost every week there's some transformation of some kind, whether technological or political or scientific, whatever. And I think it's bewildering to human beings to live in a time when they can't take anything as fixed - when everything is shifting and changing all the time.

When we stop believing in the gods we can start believing in their stories.