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My novels are all ideas.

One of the things the novel can do is address big questions in ways that are accessible to people. It's not that I want to teach people, but these are the things that interest me, and this is my medium for exploring ideas, and I think the potential of novels to do that is massive.

Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.

Literature at its fullest takes human nature as its theme. That's the kind of writing that interests me.

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

I think of novels as houses. You live in them over the course of a long period, both as a reader and as a writer.

I have tried very hard as a novelist to say, 'Novels are about individuals and especially larger than life individuals.'

I have an ideas book at home with far more ideas than I will ever be able to write.

I love novels where not much 'happens' but where the interest is in the ideas and analyses of characters.

A novel is a great act of passion and intellect, carpentry and largess. From the very beginning, I wrote to explain my own life to myself, and I invited readers who chose to make the journey with me to join me on the high wire.