“The central problem of novel-writing is causality.”

“Plenty of people were writing novels; in fact, if one did a survey in the street, half of Edinburgh was writing a novel, and this meant that there really weren't enough characters to go round. Unless, of course, one wrote about people who were themselves writing novels. And what would the novels that these fictional characters were writing be about? Well, they would be novels about people writing novels.”

“You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing.”

“The central character is an incomplete package of yearning that takes the length of the novel to complete. Completion, though, is not to be confused with perfection.”

“I find writing novels a challenge, writing stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.”

“Writing a novel is agony.”