Well, I do have some maiden aunts that are not quite like the aunts in the book, but I definitely do have a couple of them, and a couple of old aunties.

When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.

Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.

The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I’ve read so often that I’ve internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out.

The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of language and diction, different approach to story.

Sometimes you can do all the right things and not succeed. And that's a hard lesson of reality.

Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent

It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.

I believe, in a funny way, the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken for.

Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

Criticism at the wrong time, even if it's legitimate criticism, can be seriously damaging and make the writer lose faith in what he's doing. It's the timing that's all-important.

I will always take your part, Bee. Right or wrong. That is why you must always take care to be right, lest you make your father a fool.

Don't do anything stupid, they said. Well, it's now or never, I suppose, and stupidity and confidence run a fine line.

I would live to study not study to live.

I am one of the new characters in the brand new series of 'Postman Pat.' It has been a joy to do.

Good manners are just a way of showing other people that we have respect for them.

If perfect's what you're searching for, then just stay the same.

I think every job that I've done to this point has had something new to challenge me.

The bigger the headquarters the more decadent the company.

No one can argue any longer about the rights of women. It's like arguing about earthquakes.

A man without a sense of purpose, even one whose bank accounts are stuffed with money, is always a small man.