He made me think of all the books I hadn't read, and all the ones I'd read but hadn't fully understood.

I think I was always writing books that had very clear scenic structures. I do tend to write in scenes. I do tend to have a fair amount of dialogue. And I do tend to use stories that don't sprawl all over the place, that have a very sharp focus in terms of how they unfold in time.

I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.

Every minute we were together, I felt like I was wandering in the dark through a strange house, groping for a light switch. And then, whenever I found one and turned it on, the bulb was dead.

There's not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.