With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes.

Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!

I believe that, in any novel of mine, the principal objective is the construction of the whole.

The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of.

When you play this game, you're not just playing for yourself and your fans. You also play for a name you have to represent. You have a family that's hoping you do good every single day.

I think women with children are better than men. This is only my opinion. Might be 'cos me Mum brought me up. I think maternally, they just take to being a parent quicker than men.

Everyone has different paths. I’ve been lucky to have a good support system - my family, friends and colleagues to keep me grounded and humble and to keep working hard. I never give up."

I think I just really understand what it is to feel like you don't fit in, within your society, within your world, within your family, within whatever. I've always felt like an odd duck so I really understood that.