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I think the main thing to remember when writing a novel is to stay true to the characters.

Especially if you're endeavouring daily to write your own books, you read with a degree of - well, it's hard to forget you're a writer when you're reading.

Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it - the information just disappears out of my head.

But I do think it's important to remember that writers do not have a monopoly of wisdom on their books. They can be wrong about their own books, they can often learn about their own books.

Literature is memory written down. All literature is memory.

After you've read a novel, you only retain a vague memory of its contents. You remember the atmosphere, the odd image or phrase or vivid cameo.

To read a book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a book which will not repay some hard thought is not worth publishing.

Writers are rememberers.

When people read a novel 600 pages long, six months pass, and all they will remember are five pages. They don't remember the text - instead, they remember the sensations the text gives them.

Often something comes in from which you can see that the person is good, the book may not be perfect as it is, and the person doesn't want to do a re-write. That's something we do almost nothing of.