Literature at its fullest takes human nature as its theme. That's the kind of writing that interests me.

“One can only describe the human but can never define it because humans are complex in their nature.”

One can only describe the human but can never define it because humans are complex in their nature.

Criminality is a basic part of human nature.

A theme I'm obsessed with is the tension between human nature and the frameworks designed to curb the worst and promote the best of it.

Novelists congratulate themselves on their creation of this kind of “character” or that kind of “character,” and readers pretend to talk knowingly about “character,” but all it amounts to is that the writers are enjoying themselves writing lies and the readers are enjoying themselves reading lies. In fact, there is no such thing as character, something fixed and final. The real thing is something that novelists don’t know how to write about. Or, if they tried, the end result would never be a novel. Real people are strangely difficult to make sense out of. Even a god would have his hands full trying.