I hope that readers will tear through my books because they can't stop themselves - and then, maybe, read them again and find new things there.

Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away.

A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.

The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes.

i wish i was away in Ingo far across the briny sea sailing over deepest waters where neither care nore worry trouble me

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.

It is a violation which has obsessed the tyrants of the twentieth century. They do not want simply to kill their opponents, but to liquidate them, to deny that they have ever existed.

However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

The world is not beautiful. Therefore it is.

Crime must be brought under control... Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live in peace, was not true freedom at all.

Faith hasn't got no eyes but she's long-legged.

One of the most common reasons people renovate their homes is a change in their lifestyle - an upcoming wedding, a new baby, or grown children moving away.

You want to embrace, but I can't figure out how to hold on to it.

No one ever was the poorer for giving

The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral.

Everything, everything seemed once-upon-a-time.

I would love to do a duet with Tim McGraw. I think that would be fun.

With a play, you do it and it's gone. Films always date. Television drama always dates. Television comedy, for some reason, seems to go on.