I love research, and in fact it's liberating because you have to create your own world. No one can say "I've just got back from the 1860s, and you got it wrong." Anyway, it's fiction.

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

I don't use real people for inspiration.

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

...it just goes to show you can't leave anything behind. You bring it all with you, whether you want to or not.

Clearly the secret of happiness...is a variation on the general principle of banging your head against a wall, and then stopping.

I definitely do feel a pull toward people and places that are far from my own life.