It seems to me that the basic plot of all historical novels is a romance swept aside by history.

You couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t hate at least something. Indeed, perhaps you couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t hate almost everything.

I hate going back over what I've written. It makes me feel physically sick.

If I want to feel as if I'm being sucked down a fathomless gloomy tunnel for hours and hours then I have a complete set of Schopenhauer at home.

I don't have a day job, so I read any time of day.

I'm reasonably good at talking onstage, but actually holding court in a pub is all to do with power dynamics which I don't think has anything to do with fiction.

There's never a bad time to put earplugs in. They're the kind of thing you can reject as a bit lame, but somebody told me to do start wearing earplugs and it turned out to be great advice.

Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least one murder.

The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that isn't funny on some level is quite hard.

I'm very finicky about when I'm in the right mood to write. So most days, I find some excuse not to do anything.

The reason I start a novel is because there's something that excites me and I want to explore it.

But a small part of him also knew that the reason he'd never ventured anywhere was because of the worry that the reality of the world wouldn't match up to his dreams.

Luck is the way the dust settles when God passes by.

Society has seldom considered the vicarious effects of domestic violence between partners on the lives of children.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it.

Ever since I was a kid, whatever situation I was presented with, I always made the most of it.

It feels good when your hometown supports you, and Macon's always done that with us. Every time we come here, it's an event - which is nice.

I never said it would be easy. Giving up is easy.

Never turn down an adventure without a really good reason.

I try to do something physical every day. I don't go heavy every day, though.

Everything depends on attitude. We are ambitious or lazy, enthusiastic or dull, loyal or undependable, according to our attitude.