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When a new book comes out or becomes accessible in whatever form, I get it and I read it.

Readers always seem to think that the author has some control over the design of their books.

Each book I've done somehow finds its own unique form, a specific way it has to be written, and once I find it, I stick with it.

I get thousands of letters, and they give me a feeling of how each book is perceived. Often I think I have written about a certain theme, but by reading the letters or reviews, I realise that everybody sees the book differently.

Personally I don't like it when writers become excessively proscriptive about the way that people read their books.

The act of writing... is the act of trying to understand why my opinion is what it is. And ultimately, I think that's the same experience the reader has when they pick up one of my books.

Whatever the readers feel when they're reading my books, I feel it tenfold when I'm writing it.

Reading is a free practice. I think the readers are free to begin by the books where they want to. They don't have to be led in their reading.

It's a fantastic privilege to spend three or four hundred pages with a reader. You have time to go into certain questions that are painful or difficult or complicated. That's one thing that appeals to me very much about the novel form.

My perfect reader doesn't just read - he or she devours books.