In real life nothing means anything. Stuff happens and there just is no structure.

You can't do science in a novel, but you can do philosophy. Or, if you're really lucky, you can manage to pose a question in such a way that other people will take it on.

In some ways I'm a frustrated scientist or mathematician. The amount of times I've thought I'd go back to university and do theoretical physics because I like the big questions, but really I know now that that's not quite me. What's me is to do it in novels.

Routine kills creative thought.

Living for ever would be like marrying yourself, with no possibility of a divorce.

I erased the thought from my mind, but I couldn't undo the fact that I'd had the thought in the first place.

I think about stories and their logic and wonder if there can be any such thing as simply "there is a book.