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When the writers themselves are a bit out of control, and their lives are collapsing around them, they seem to rejoice in misery and celebrate the wrong sort of things.

I always feel sad when I come to the end of a book.

It's often the case that the most strained moments in books are the very beginning and the very end - the getting in and the getting out. The ending, especially: it's awkward, as if the writer doesn't know when the book is over and nervously says it all again.

A book becomes something else once it's dramatized.

There's a moment in every book when the book turns and it surprises me.

Discovering the 'impossible' ending to a new book makes me sick with joy and relief.

I get very tired of books that feel emotionally empty. I would much rather have writers err on the side of being overly sentimental than not. I think that the perfect balance is a story that moves you without being maudlin, but I don't enjoy books that are empty of emotion and there's no connection to the characters.

Movies can't ruin books. They can only ruin movies.

A novel wouldn't be a book if there weren't some flights of fancy on the part of the author, stopping time to examine things, or to tell a joke.

It's with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.