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Authors are influenced by everything they've ever read. If you've read widely enough, it helps you create your own mix.

To some extent, all authors are a little schizophrenic. We lead most of our lives in solitary confinement, living and breathing the books that we're writing.

I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to the society they inhabit. They have a kind of detachment, or try to have.

I know when I go and see a writer, the first thing I think to myself is, 'Are they the character in the book?' You just can't help it; it's the way people are.

I don't get on with novelists, don't enjoy their company. Once you've worked for a publisher, you understand the species, see them in their natural habitat, and it's not always pretty.

For a lot of people, becoming an author is a change in occupation... they are coming from something that totally has nothing to do with this. If they are expecting to come into a room full of people praising them, then they are in the wrong place.

My life as an author has always been about brilliant, odd people.

One of the ironies of being a professional writer is that, if you are even moderately successful, the very traits that let you succeed as a writer are not much help when the time comes to head out as 'The Author.'

There are a lot of authors in the world, so it's difficult to find a unique niche to present your take on things. That is always a challenge for any author.

Standing out as a writer today requires more than a bright idea and limpid prose. Authors need to become businesspeople as well.