A novel determines its own size and shape and I've never tried to stretch an idea beyond the frame and structure it seemed to require.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite -- getting something down.

All she knew was that she must be in love with someone, or she wouldn't feel so miserable.

Faith is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.

Generalised anger and frustration is something that gets you in the studio, and gets you to work - though it's not necessarily evident in anything that's finished.

Movement for me is meditation.

Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.

The imagination is not an escape, but a return to the richness of our true selves; a return to reality.

When I was growing up, I was always on stage but I loved other things.

I like bringing the girls on set, but if I can't do that then the next day I feel I have to be uber-mum to make up for it. Then I'm exhausted and feel like I'm running in fumes.

Lies require commitment.