I don't want my novel to be like Madame Bovary, finely crafted with the life edited out of it. I want my novel to be like a friend telling me a story -- so we go off on thoughts; that's the way it is.

Whether I'm critically well received, whether or not I sell books - of course it becomes progressively harder to get them published - nevertheless, it's what I do, every day.

With publicity comes humiliation.

Why would I want to read something about somebody that's just a really nice, decent person who overcomes terrible trials? That's not how life is to me.

The novel is never really in the first draft. The novel really happens in the revisions.

I felt my whole life was a facsimile of a life.

I think the sixties must have been quite a lot of fun.