Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them.
I did not set out to convert anyone to Christianity.
The middle class is so funny, it's the class I know best, and it's the class where you find the most pretension, so that's what makes the middle classes so funny.
We're a phenomenally snobby society, and it's such a rich seam. The middle class is so funny: it's the class I know best, and it's the class where you find the most pretension, so that's what makes the middle classes so funny.
Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts that is something on which to pride yourself but poverty itself is romanticized by fools.
I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.
I'm interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society. We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term it's quite a satisfying thing to do, isn't it?
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever - was write novels.
Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.
When people are very damaged, they can often meet the world with a kind of defiance.
I sometimes have a tendency to walk on the dark side.
Honestly, I think we should be delighted people still want to read, be it on a Kindle or a Nook or whatever the latest device is.
Bigotry is probably the thing I detest most.
I just hate meetings. Though it's true that once you've made a lot of money, people around you might be full of ideas about ways to make lots more money and might be disappointed that you don't want to seize every opportunity to do so.
The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.
I love a good Dorothy L. Sayers.
The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
On the subject of literary genres, I've always felt that my response to poetry is inadequate. I'd love to be the kind of person that drifts off into the garden with a slim volume of Elizabethan verse or a sheaf of haikus, but my passion is story.
I'm an emotional person.