The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need things to be certain.

I'm very eclectic in my music tastes - anything from Nina Simone to Beethoven to Talvin Singh.

I guess there's a sort of cycle with writing books. There's all the researching and then the imagining and writing - which is the real job - and then there's always a period when the book comes out and you have to lift your head and venture out.

I get really excited if I think I'm going to introduce somebody to a writer they haven't found before and I think they'll love. My favorite books to get as gifts are any that the giver is messianic about.

I wish I got a lie-in on Saturday mornings but I never do.

She touched his hand for the last time. Oh, Karim, that we have already done. But always there was a problem between us. How can I explain? I wasn't me, and you weren't you. From the very beginning to the very end, we didn't see things. What we did--we made each other up. p. 382

Kids are naturally inventive and curious and creative, but most adults have had that beaten out of them. Writing is a form of play you have to get rid of all those internal censors that we adults have, the things that say, 'Don't go there, that's not allowed.

I was always an outsider, always standing outside, observing and trying to figure things out. Which is exactly what you need to do as a writer, I suppose.