“I once jokingly told someone that every book is like a relationship. They're four or five years long - that's not so bad. They're serious. They demand a lot of attention. But I remember thinking that I wanted to have one with someone who's not so crazy and peculiar and demanding.”

“Friends can be a pain. They can be demanding and hard work. But maybe that's because they're the wrong friends. I read a quote once, can't remember who by, but they said that your friends aren't necessarily the people you like best, they're just the people who got there first.”

“...I think one shouldn't pussyfoot, and just say that you write the stuff that you would like to read. So you write for yourself, no doubt about that. But I do have a sort of romantic idea of someone in their twenties, of a certain bent, and when they pick up a book by me, they think--as I have done on several occasions--'Ah, here is one for me. Here is a writer who I'll have to read all of, because they're speaking directly to me, and they're writing what I want to read.' And sometimes you're doing the signing queue and a reader comes past and you sign the book, and there's a little exchange of the eyes, where you think, 'Ah, that's one of them.' So there is that ideal reader. And it's someone who's discovering literature and homes in on you. I'm aware of such readers.”

“When I feel sad, I try to think of someone else in the world who is suffering worse than me. Like someone in Seattle, who is hurting so bad financially that instead of a vente coffee at Starbucks every morning, they have to downsize to grande.”

“If someone had told me years ago that sharing a sense of humour was so vital to partnerships, I could have avoided a lot of sex!”

“When I meet someone who says they're not "much for books," I can guarantee that they haven't met the right book yet.”