And so it happened again, the daily miracle whereby interiority opens out and brings to bloom the million-petalled flower of being here, in the world, with other people. Neither as hard as she had thought it might be nor as easy as it appeared.

I don't keep any copies of my books in the house - they go to my mum's flat. I don't like them around.

Fate is a quantity very much like TV: an unstoppable narrative, written, produced and directed by somebody else.

It's gotten to a point where everybody is concerned about their rights and nobody is concerned about their duties.

I like books that don't give you an easy ride. I like the feeling of discomfort. The sense of being implicated.

People don't settle for people. They resolve to be with them. It takes faith. You draw a circle in the sand and agree to stand in it and believe in it.

When I see my friends engaging in a Twitter war for an afternoon, I think that would destroy me for a month.