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Modernist fiction is tied to problems of writers. Self-glorifying. Existential struggle. This has not been a big part of genre writing.

The main impetus for being a writer is thinking, 'I could invent another world. I'm not terribly keen on this one.'

I have an English literature degree. I wanted to be the next great American novelist from a very early age, but I put it aside for a while, because I got very realistic at one point.

Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I'd really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it's the wrong century.

We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past.

There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.

Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write.

I would want to travel the world and write about it. To be a famous writer.

I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist.

I kind of want to be seen as an American writer, not just a New York writer.