I'm an enormous fan of Thomas Bernhard's books, and I like the relentless feeling in his work - the pursuit of darkness, the negative - and I think in some sense I've internalised that as what one is supposed to do.

I like big doses of grief when I read: Richard Yates, Flannery O'Connor, Kenzabaro Oe, Thomas Bernhard.

In some sense, prose fiction is just a way of unlocking a space. If I can unlock the space, it comes out and it's vivid, I find that I care about it, and it's part of me.

The common, the quotidian, is so much more unyielding to me, really stubborn and hard to work with, and I like this because it makes me think and it makes me worry. I can't just plunge my hand into the meat of it. I need new approaches.

I think if you work as an actress and are supposed as a character to be in love with some actor, then to some extent you do have to be in love with him.

I love the way dates in a text make us think that truth will follow.