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Consciousness - that, to me, is the theme of the modern novel.

There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.

You have to surrender to a book. If you do, when something in it seems to be going askew, you are wounded. The more you have surrendered to a book, the more jarring its errors appear.

No one bothered reading the books and understanding - and again, I'm not being high-falutin' about it - but I think our books are great literature with great metaphors of real life dealing with fears and hopes.

Many people tell me that they don 't know what to feel when they finish one of my books because the story was dark, or complicated, or strange. But while they were reading it, they were inside my world and they were happy. That's good.

Fears and lies intensify consciousness.

If I'm put in a situation where I am not really sure what's going to happen, it can be overwhelming. I get a bit anxious.

It wasn't conscious, but I guess that one book is the reaction to the other. The first is so imprisoned in a male point-of-view, and the second is a point-of-view that can go anywhere it wants.

Consciousness is an end in itself. We torture ourselves getting somewhere, and when we get there it is nowhere, for there is nowhere to get to.

We need to know how we are feeling. Mindfully acknowledging our feelings serves as an 'emotional thermostat' that recalibrates our decision making. It's not that we can't be anxious, it's that we need to acknowledge to ourselves that we are.