If I had a plot that was all set in advance, why would I want go through the agony of writing the novel? A novel is a kind of exploration and discovery, for me at any rate.

I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.

It is inconceivable to me that a million or three million or half a million human beings will think and feel precisely the same way on any single subject.

A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.

I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it.

Two hundred or more years ago most people on the planet were never aware of any reality other than the one into which they were brought up.