I always pity people who have to write my plot synopses.

There are people that you don't like because you're jealous of them until you meet them. And you haven't read their book because it's had so much attention. Then you meet them and discover they've been jealous of you, and you become friends.

I was very anxious when I was writing 'Oscar And Lucinda.' I would take other books off the shelf to check my chapter length was OK.

It's not like I've got 100 ideas. I finish a book, and I've got none.

I used to say when I was younger, 'I'm exhausted; writers can only write for four hours a day and that's done.' Now I find, as I'm getting older and I'm more aware of time, I can actually write all day.

When I went to live in New York, I didn't mean to stay there, but here I am.

I have no interest in writing, generally speaking, about America at all - even if it does continue to terrify me.

Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying' had an immense effect on me, and most of my novels bear the burn marks of this experience, those short chapters with their conflicting points of view, truth expressed by multiple perspectives. The other attractive thing about 'As I Lay Dying' was the way it gave rich voices to the poor.

At school, I was fanatical about being a scientist.

I got a job in advertising. So even though I was writing, I was always supporting myself. That's the thing that would matter for my father, who was absolutely a creature of the Great Depression.