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

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" I got in the habit of giving away a book as soon as I've finished it because I lived in a housing co-op at Cambridge and had no space to keep books. "

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

" 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 read three books a week. "

" I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" I'm a huge planner, more and more so as the years go by. "

" 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!' "

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

" I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was. "

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

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