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And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.

Although a novel takes place in the larger world, there's always some drive in it that is entirely personal - even if you don't know it while you're doing it.

I'm not a writer who refuses to talk about a book until I've finished.

I never plan my novels because if I know what is going to happen, it bores me rigid. I let the story tell itself.

I never discuss a novel while I'm writing it, for fear that talking about it will diminish my desire to write it.

Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.

Like lots of people who say, 'I'm going to write a novel,' it's actually more comfortable to think I could write a novel than to discover that you can't.

The point really is that a writer tends to write a book that he or she tends to write. It's as simple as that. Of course, it's important to make a living and all that, but the main impulse as far as I'm concerned - and I'm sure as other writers are concerned - is to tell a story that I feel impelled by.

Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.

You have to have heart's passion to write a novel.