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Because I'm such a creative person, and I've always got my nose in a book, I suppose it was only a matter of time before non-fiction turned into fiction again. But I never consciously set out to become a writer and I never thought I'd be doing the things I'm doing today.

I wrote the book because I wanted to be able to share some things that I had learned and as pompous as that may sound, as you get to a certain point in life, you figure so what am I doing?

I didn't choose literature. Literature chose me. There was no decision on my side.

I always assumed I could never make a living out of literary fiction, and I was right. When I did try, it took four years before being published.

I decided to write a book primarily because people talked me into it.

I always thought of myself as a kind of literary bureaucrat. And that was never going to be enough for me.

I think I became a writer because I didn't know of anything else to do. Maybe some incident from my childhood influenced me.

Before trying a novel I wrote a couple of plays.

I continued writing the bad plays which fortunately nobody would produce, just as no one did me the unkindness of publishing my early novels.