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.

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

I sort of mind living in a time when most of the literature is terribly personal. I suppose it's because I grew up on a love of history, philosophy, science and religion, but not to think too much about yourself.

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.

Books that change you, even later in life, give you a kind of electrical shock as the world takes a different shape.

I think literary theory has not been terribly good for English studies in a while. It's not that theory isn't interesting, but it isn't about books, or the idiosyncrasies and complexities of putting language together.