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" The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side. "

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" I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine. "

" Ah yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence. "

" Writers should be applauded for their ability to make things up. "

" It's painful to consider anything but writing. "

" There's no neutral language about travel. Either travel is described in ways that make it sound kind of shallow or just glossy or silly or a way for rich people to spend their time; or else travel is often described in quite derogatory ways, you know, like immigrants swarming across borders, for instance. "

" Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent. "

" A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places. "

" Identity politics are wearisome; you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer. "

" I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga. "

" I love it when novels contain a broad cast of characters, including queer ones. "

" I come out of an academic background, and I'm aware that what I'm doing is simultaneously research and fiction. I want to meet both those obligations. "

" For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have. "

" I tend to be so lost in the work that I don't notice the weather. My partner will come home and say, 'Beautiful day, wasn't it?' and I'll say, 'Was it?' as I won't have noticed the real world at all. "

" I think it would be a shame for any writer to let their publishers in any way corral them into a single genre. "

" The way to my heart is through Belgian milk chocolate. "

" I'm constantly saying, 'I read a fascinating article in 'The New Yorker'... ' I say it so often that sometimes I think I have nothing interesting to say myself, I merely regurgitate 'The New Yorker.' "

" Every parent has those moments where they look at their child and think, 'There's a demon in those eyes and no one can see it but me!' "

" You know the way there are two kinds of actors - the De Niro kind who's always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don't have a house style. "

" One thing I like about historical fiction is that I'm not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you're obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own. "

" I've been writing full-time since I was 23. "

" I read three books a week. "

" Before I had kids, I thought you should never lie to a kid. But now I've had them, I realize you almost lie to them by definition, because if you're trying to summarize something for your 1-year-old, you put it in very simple terms. You only gradually complicate the explanation as they get older. "

" Kids delight in 'magical thinking', whether in the form of the Tooth Fairy or the saints: whether you see these as comforting lies or eternal verities, they are part of how we help kids make sense of the world. "

" I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way. "

" Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene. "

" I remember a period where my publisher said to me, 'Look, your historical work is selling much better than your contemporary work, so please give us more historicals.' "

" I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework. "

" You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well. "

" I've always been religiously inclined, but it doesn't come up in most of my books. "

" You know, plenty of people headed off to Canada or America on the basis of government information, propaganda campaigns. Often you'd go off with a brochure in hand and you'd turn up and it wouldn't be like that at all. "