Your mid-thirties is a good time because you know a fair amount, you have some self-control.

For me, [deep structures] might be something very simply to do with the split in my family. That's why I'm always thinking about opposites. It's so childish, really, but that might be simply what it is.

Cambridge was a joy. Tediously. People reading books in a posh place. It was my fantasy. I loved it. I miss it still.

Writing is my way of expressing - and thereby eliminating - all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.

One thing you learn about the novel as a form is that it's always smarter than you are.

'A reality shaped around your own desires' - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.