Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will - with luck - come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise

Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two.

If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.

I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people's lands.

I could meet dreadful people and end up seeing the world through their eyes, seeing their frailties, their needs.