Choice was dangerous: you had to forgo all other possibilities when you chose.

Fats and Andrew were perhaps equally aware that the admiration in their relationship flowed mostly from Andrew to Fats; but Fats alone suspected that he needed Andrew more than Andrew needed him.

Would the realization of Sukhvinder’s desperation lead, at last, to some crack in her mother’s implacable disapproval, her disappointment, her endless stone-faced criticism?

You've got to work. It's about structure. It's about discipline. It's all these deadly things that your school teacher told you you needed... You need it.

Jo speaking to Charlie Rose re: writing

Birth and death: there was the same consciousness of heightened existence and of her own elevated importance

Whatever the reviewers feel about 'The Casual Vacancy', it is what I wanted it to be, and you can't say fairer than that as a writer.