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Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.

To me, novels are a trip of discovery, and you discover things that you don't know and you assume that many of your readers don't know, and you try to bring them to life on the page.

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

A novel wouldn't be a book if there weren't some flights of fancy on the part of the author, stopping time to examine things, or to tell a joke.

I've written fiction... but the nonfiction has always received the most attention.

Every reader re-creates a novel - in their own imagination, anyway. It's only entirely the writer's when nobody else has read it.

A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.

People seem to read so much more nonfiction than fiction, and so it always gives me great pleasure to introduce a friend or family member to a novel I believe they'll cherish but might not otherwise have thought to pick up and read.

I like to believe, as a writer, that anybody who isn't a reader yet has just not found the right book.

I think a lot of readers are looking for a book they can talk about.