I hated being a novelist when I was 20 - I had nothing to write about.

I'd like to write the way Matisse paints.

I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.

I don't only write about English literature; I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.

If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work - as a novelist.

What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.