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It's never really easy to be successful as a writer when you're trying to write literary fiction. You've already limited your readership limited by that choice.

The smart way to build a literary career is you create an identifiable product, then reliably produce that product so people know what they are going to get. That's the smart way to build a career, but not the fun way. Maybe you can think about being less successful and happier. That's an option, too.

The reality of the writer's world is that you set yourself up for disappointment with every success that you deliver because with every success you raise your readers' expectations.

The reality of the writer's world is that you set yourself up for future disappointment with every success that you deliver because you end up raising your audience's expectations.

The gamble of literature is that I make the best work I can; the most truthful, the most representative of how I see things. I try and do that, and then I put it out there and say to you, 'What do you think?' I hope that you think well of it, obviously.

I think the most important thing we as writers can do is figure out how we define what success will mean to us and focus on that.

I'm realistic about my career as a novelist. I'm certainly not a superstar and far, far from a household name, but I feel successful.

My literary success meant nothing to me.

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.

Literary readings aren't going to shake their reputation as the added-fibre of our entertainment diet until the people who organize and participate in them snap out of this mentality.