Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet.

It's not in good taste to have talking ghosts in a grown-up novel.

But surely to tell these tall tales and others like them would be to spread the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect.

I don't actually believe in the extension of consciousness after death.

Women often have a great need to portray themselves as sympathetic and pleasing, but we're also dark people with dark thoughts.

It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.

All novels attempt to cut neural routes through the brain, to convince us that down this road the true future of the novel lies.