Because I work quite slowly, I have to keep myself interested over a long research and writing period. So I can't see myself writing about modern middle-class Londoners anytime soon.

I don't think I could write about someone I didn't feel some sympathy for.

If writers stuck to firsthand experience, novels would be pretty limited.

I suppose the short chapters and differing narrative points of view are quite "cinematic" devices, which came very naturally to me.

Just because we think of wolves (or the wilderness, or another race) as wild and fierce, doesn't mean there isn't another side to them.

I don't use real people for inspiration.

Whenever I pick up a book I think, "Tell me something I don't know."