Quote

To me, novels are a trip of discovery, and you discover things that you don't know and you assume that many of your readers don't know, and you try to bring them to life on the page.

Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character.

What fascinates me as a writer is the stuff underneath, To me, what drives a novel is the curiosity behind the character and the depths that you want to find in that character.

A novel's whole pattern is rarely apparent at the outset of writing, or even at the end; that is when the writer finds out what a novel is about, and the job becomes one of understanding and deepening or sharpening what is already written. That is finding the theme.

I don't know who said that novelists read the novels of others only to figure out how they are written. I believe it's true. We aren't satisfied with the secrets exposed on the surface of the page: we turn the book around to find the seams.

I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself.

I have tried very hard as a novelist to say, 'Novels are about individuals and especially larger than life individuals.'

Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.

Novels demand a certain complexity of narrative and scope, so it's necessary for the characters to change.

Fiction is able to encompass books that are bleak and which dwell on the manifold and terrible problems of our times. But I don't think that all books need to have that particular focus.