“I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.”

Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

Pain was something we were expected to endure. But I doubt very much if you would be entirely happy today if a doctor threw a towel in your face and jumped on you with a knife.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.

I’m wondering what to read next.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life.

Good writing is essentially rewriting.

All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen.

Perhaps it’s chasing me. But I don’t think it will ever catch me because I am moving fast.

The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.

The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.

The life of a writer is absolute hell compared to the life of a businessman.

If you are good life is good.

If you are good life is good.

The walls were wet and sticky, and peach juice was dripping from the ceiling. James opened his mouth and caught some of it on his tongue. It tasted delicious.

A life is made up of a great number of small incidents, and a small number of great ones.

Obscurity is never a virtue.

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.

Some books are lies frae end to end.

A boy has to peddle his book.

To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn’t know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in…We should be thankful we cannot see the horrors and degradations lying around our childhood, in cupboards and bookshelves, everywhere.

We were a short lived anthology of things no one else could read.

A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.

I always write the end of everything first. I always write the last chapters of my books before I write the beginning. Then I go back to the beginning. I mean, it’s always nice to know where you’re going is my theory.