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Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character.

It's the pursuit of love and happiness that is the driving force of the romantic novel.

The novel is about, for me, sustained and organized looking. I do think that people have a hunger for a sustained engagement, that concentration that the book can offer.

I think that if there's one key insight science can bring to fiction, it's that fiction - the study of the human condition - needs to broaden its definition of the human condition. Because the human condition isn't immutable and doomed to remain uniform forever.

The writers are writing human beings, and they're writing about the human condition and how difficult it is to function in that condition. I think it's one of the charms of the show, the idea of redemption and working towards becoming better people, for everybody involved.

Fiction's about what it is to be a human being.

I love the novel because it's like a love affair. You can just fall into it and keep going, and you never know where it's going to take you.

A novel is about people.

But novels are never about what they are about; that is, there is always deeper, or more general, significance. The author may not be aware of this till she is pretty far along with it.

The novel is a penetrating study of morals and ethics.