If you are going to write, nothing will stop you, and if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.

I'm going to make it. Nothing is going to stop me. Nothing. I want it too much.

I learnt that I must never finish a book with nothing else to do.

What was I qualified to do to make a living? Nothing. You don't need qualifications as an actor or a politician. And I didn't want to be a politician.

I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.

My background is deep and set in deep time, and in a narrow space, oral traditions going back a long, long time, which I inherited by osmosis.