“In the end, you write the book that grabs you by the throat and demands to be written.”

“My horizon's have shrunk and I have only endings to write.”

“Until you know who you are you can’t write.”

“Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read. If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people.I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it. To read a 600-page novel and then say that it has deeply offended you: well, you have done a lot of work to be offended.”

“It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.”

“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.”

“Scraps of memory: this is not how a climax should be written. A climax should surge towards its Himalayan peak; but I am left with shreds, and must jerk towards my crisis like a puppet with broken strings. This is not what I had planned; but perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.”