You can understand a lot about yourself by working out which fairytale you use to present your world to yourself in.

You learn a lot about love before you ever get there. You learn at least as much about love from books as you do from watching your parents.

The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free.

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

I know that part of the reason I read Tolkien when I'm ill is that there is an almost total absence of sexuality in his world, which is restful.

I find the attempt to find things out, which scientists are possessed by, to be as human as breathing, or feeding, or sex. And so the science has to be in the novels as science and not just as metaphors.