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When I read a book, I like to be surprised. I don't want to read the same genre formula that I've read a hundred times before.

I give each book however long it needs to be the best I can make it.

You have to be careful not to use anything too colloquial or you date the book.

I never write in a linear way. And I tell students not to. You can only know so much about a book when you first start.

It's so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I've never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.

I try not to observe myself in the process of composing a poem because I don't want to come up with a formula, which I would then be unscrupulous in using.

Each book I've done somehow finds its own unique form, a specific way it has to be written, and once I find it, I stick with it.

I really strive to bring something new to each book. I don't want to write the same book over and over again.

Books have this function that help me to understand the work I've done, to wrap it up.

With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.