“Why do we fall silent or get worried just as our story is about to spring out of our control and into its own life? Whose shadow falls across the page?”

We are constantly telling ourselves what we most want to know, and at the same time are deaf to it. Why does envy have such a fierce bite?

The antidote to envy is one’s own work. Always one’s own work. Not the thinking about it. Not the assessing of it. But the doing of it. The answers you want can come only from the work itself.

Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing.

The only way [the book can be written] is to set the unbook-the gilt-framed portrait of the book-right there on the altar and sacrifice it, truly sacrifice it.

Daily life is always extraordinary when rendered precisely.

Fiction must convince our bodies for it to have any chance of convincing our minds.

Furthermore, this pattern is seen across all the advanced economies, and isn’t just a feature of some special subset (e.g. the Anglo-Saxons).

Paul ripped off John’s right arm and used it to slap John across the face, then he said, “Those’re horrible, mate, just horrible, y’know.

Waiting is a huge part of being a refugee. You’re waiting at borders to get across. You’re waiting for transportation.

Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that experience one of the most valuable in my life.

That’s a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.

The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you.

I let a tarantula walk across my hand, and I ate rat soup.

Don’t I yearn for the days when a draw across the throat made f**king resolution.