“When reading I pretend I’m an editor, though when writing I realize I’m not.”

“I never need to find time to read. When people say to me, ‘Oh, yeah, I love reading. I would love to read, but I just don’t have time,’ I’m thinking, ‘How can you not have time?’ I read when I’m drying my hair. I read in the bath. I read when I’m sitting in the bathroom. Pretty much anywhere I can do the job one-handed, I read.”

“My ideal state as a reader when I’m reading other people is feeling I’m vaguely wasting my time when I’m not reading that novel.”

“As you can see, when I write, I like to look like I’m recovering from tuberculosis.”

“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.”

“If you’re going to hit on me, please wear boxing gloves. I get it though, because when I’m dancing it looks like I’m fighting. In the face of violence, I’m just that gentle and sensual.”