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Readers of novels often fall into the bad habit of being overly exacting about the characters' moral flaws. They apply to these fictional beings standards that no one they know in real life could possibly meet.

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.

Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a few unusual writers can make something great without that.

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

Personally I don't like it when writers become excessively proscriptive about the way that people read their books.

When you're writing fiction, you're in every character 'cause you can't help it.

The interesting thing is, when you play a real-life character or someone based in a book, you always come up against people's preconceptions of what they have in their heads.

Fiction is often most powerful when the author is exploring an issue - and not writing like a know-it-all who has the perfect answer.

There's more fiction in my life than in books, so I don't bother with them.

If you write fiction, you have to love your characters. It's like your family. You don't have to like them, but you have to love them.