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I love writers. All of my best friends are writers.

I'm blessed in my good friends, and some of them happen to be writers, though that's almost never what our friendships are about. And every writer I've ever read, living or dead, has in one way or another helped and inspired. I have a feeling it's important not to mix the two up.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

I do have a lot of time for people in my life, and friendship is a very important subject for me. I think I'm unusual among the writers I know in that respect.

Ultimately I'm the writer for me, but also, anytime one of my friends gets stuck with a bit, they can call me, and I'm pretty good at helping them get there.

I adore the company of other writers because they are so often lively minds and, frequently, blazingly funny. And of course, we get each other in a unique way.

In terms of people that I know, my grandmother and my mother are huge influences on my writing life because they are both massively supportive and always have been of my career.

Believe it or not, friendships are difficult to write in fiction. They can easily come across as forced, particularly if they involve too much explication and too many overt gestures of affection.

For me as a person, friendships are incredibly important to me, but in writing, they can distract me.

I have been lucky with writers. None have been real trouble. Some I never met. Some I meet only after the book is finished, and some, the easiest to get along with, are the dead ones. Most become friends.