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I always have a book that I use that somehow inspires my novels.

When I write a book, I'm making it the best book I can.

Novels for me are how I find out what's going on in my own head. And so that's a really useful and indeed critical thing to do when you do as many of these other things as I do.

I'm a novelist, that's how I make my livelihood, and I concentrate on the novels.

I write the kinds of novels I like to read, where the setting is rendered with love and care.

I don't think of literary novels as self-help documents, although literature undoubtedly saved my life when I was young, enabling me to disappear into all manner of stories, to recognise feelings that I felt alone in.

I do my best to build a strong factual foundation for each of my novels and rely upon my author's notes to keep my conscience clear.

When I write, I get glimpses into future novels.

Novels are a kind of experiment in selfhood, for the reader as well as for the author.

I don't very often read novels.