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Characters develop as the book progresses, but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life, we may have to put up with tedious people, but not in novels.

I feel a bigger sense of fulfillment when writing a novel, and short stories are more about instant gratification.

Writing a novel is an intense and lonely business, but you have the reward at the end of a very direct dialogue between you and the reader.

The novel is about, for me, sustained and organized looking. I do think that people have a hunger for a sustained engagement, that concentration that the book can offer.

Writing never had the immediate gratification I was looking for.

Of course there is no denying the possible pleasure of holing up with a fat, slow-moving, mediocre novel; still, we all know that we can indulge ourselves in that fashion only so much. In the end, we read not for reading's sake, but to learn.

A novel ensures that we can look before and after, take action at whatever pace we choose, read again and again, skip and go back. The story in a book is humble and serviceable, available, friendly, is not switched on and off but taken up and put down, lasts a lifetime.

Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character.

I really appreciate what it takes to create a book. I understand the loneliness that it involves and the excitement and the vulnerability: I especially identify with that.

There are plenty of brilliant people who are too stressed out to read challenging literary novels.