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Writing is exhilarating, but reading reviews is not. I've been really devastated by 'good' reviews because they misunderstand the project of the book. It can be strangely galvanising to get a 'bad' one.

I rarely read or buy a book because of a review.

I don't read reviews because by then it's too late - whatever anyone says, the book won't change. It is written.

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.

I don't read reviews, There's no value for me in reading them. Whether they're good or bad, they'll just make me self-conscious.

I work really hard at these books, and when colleagues write nasty reviews of them, I take it very personally.

After each book, I get panicky. I don't love the reviews. I don't like going through all that, and you would think that, after almost 40 years of writing, I'd have got the hang of it.

I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them.

Reviewers are certainly entitled to their own opinions. I've become buddies with enough writers and directors, and to be perfectly honest, the ones that have lasted a long time don't pay a lot of attention to the reviews.