As a reader I like both great characterization and fast moving plots. The challenge is to balance the both and not compromise one for the other.

A man who denies his past is a man who truly denies himself a future, for he refuses to know himself, and to deny knowledge of oneself is to stumble through life as handicapped as the blind mute.

Be bad, and if you can't be bad be worse.

Indeed, you become what you eat. In which case I am an onion. Layered, slightly sour and guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes.

I was very fierce and very driven at eighteen. But my basic philosophy I think has stayed the same, I'm still an atheist, I still believe strongly in the power of free will (despite the mysticism in my prose). I don't believe in the notion of a pre-ordained destiny, and I think because of the sudden death of my father at sixteen I learnt then that it is essential to live life to the fullest as it could be snatched away at any second.

The novelist is more a marathon runner than long-distance runner and the kind of courage it takes working in such isolation cannot be underestimated. I really respect my fellow writers on this front.

Death strips all men of dignity.