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Probably because I really love this bookmaking and storytelling world, I'd been thinking for years about the possibility of becoming a literary agent.

Having a literary agent makes a huge difference in submitting work. My agent has access and tremendous passion.

After a while, if you're a writer, you want to start appearing in the bookstores of the place you're living in.

My book sales make 'real writers' possible.

I always thought of myself as a kind of literary bureaucrat. And that was never going to be enough for me.

If you're going to write a book that might, in its very best accidental career, sell 30,000 copies, you've got to have a day job.

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.

It's never really easy to be successful as a writer when you're trying to write literary fiction. You've already limited your readership limited by that choice.

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