Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence.
To me, life, for all its privations, is a luminous thing. You have to risk it.
It is important not to force a character into something. Fiction writers can be too controlling – usually that’s a terror of our own unconscious processes.
Of course, people will laugh at you, but people laugh at a great many things so there is no need to take it personally.
In this life, you have to be your own hero.
Writing has to have a great deal of certainty and self-assurance, but it’s not arrogant.
I feel in colour, strong tones that I hue down for the comfort of the pastelly inclined. Beige and magnolia and a hint of pink are what the well-decorated heart is wearing; who wants my blood red and vein-blue?
As a writer, if you’re prepared to work from your own wound, you’re allowing people into the most vulnerable parts of yourself.
I felt like a thief with a bagful of stolen glances.
Do all lovers feel helpless and valiant in the presence of the beloved? Helpless because the need to roll over like a pet dog is never far away. Valiant because you know you would slay a dragon with a pocket knife if you had to.
To create was a fundament, to appreciate, a supplement.
There’s a whole generation growing up thinking you shouldn’t seek knowledge for its own sake, and that theatre and art and books are activities that you do after-hours, rather than things that are at the heart of life. That’s a huge change.
I’m always nervous about going home, just as I am nervous about rereading books that have meant a lot to me.
Anything outside marriage seems like freedom and excitement.
To avoid discovery I stay on the run. To discover things for myself, I stay on the run...
I want to be an art-hero – I want to change the form of the novel.
There’s so little wonder left in the world because we’ve seen everything one way or another’.
There are only three possible endings -aren’t there? – to any story: revenge, tragedy or forgiveness. That’s it. All stories end like that.
I realised something important: whatever is on the outside can be taken away at any time. Only what is inside you is safe.
I had huge ambition for literature. I don’t see the point of doing anything if you don’t have ambition for it.