I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

I like the rain before it falls. of course there is no such thing, she said. That's why it's my favorite. Something can still make you happy, can't it, even if it isn't real.

I'm one of those unlucky people who had a happy childhood.

The writer I feel the most affinity with - you said you felt my books are 19th century novels, I think they're 18th century novels - is Fielding, Henry Fielding, he's the guy who does it for me.

Objectivity is just male subjectivity.

You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it.

Writers never feel comfortable having labels attached to them, however accurate they are.

Contemporary Britain seems an endlessly fascinating place to me - but if I knew a little bit more about other places, and other times, maybe it wouldn't.

Some people don't realize that a straight 'No' can be the kindest answer in the world.

Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.

For many weeks after [my wife] died, I could not get used to the feeling of coldness and lifelessness on her side of the bed - and it was even worse when they took the body away and buried her.

For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.

Whatever's between us is that kind of new.

Don't like to do anything half-heartedly, even if it is a wicked and self-destructive avocation like smoking cigars

There is no darkness in this place that we're bound Love is the only thing that matters

...I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it again.

We know that we can do what men can do, but we still don't know that men can do what women can do. That's absolutely crucial. We can't go on doing two jobs.

It's sort of a fine line where you're dying to express it and then hoping no one really gets it that closely. But I'm pretty much over that. I'd really just like to be understood.

Do what you're passionate about.

Ever since I've met you, I've swept you off my feet.

Buying's easier, selling's hard - [it's] hard to know when to get out.