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I read a book a week, man. And I don't have a great memory, but I have a good memory about what I read.

If your reading habits are anything like mine, then you can remember the exact moment that certain books came into your life. You remember where you were standing and whom you were with. You remember the feel of the book in your hands and the cover, that exact cover, even if the art has changed over the years.

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

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.

The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.

I think that reading is always active. As a writer, you can only go so far; the reader meets you halfway, bringing his or her own experience to bear on everything you've written. What I mean is that it is not only the writer's memory that filters experience, but the reader's as well.

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

I'm a big believer in sort of sense memory, like using something that you've experienced in order to put yourself in the position that the character is in.

I have resolved to pick one novel and just read it over and over again for the rest of my life, because I cannot remember anything anymore.

Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory. I like the atmospheres that result if episodes are narrated through the haze of memory.