Sometimes I'll read something on Twitter, and I'll just be in the darkest of moods for the rest of the day or the rest of the week sometimes.

In researching 'The Luminaries,' I did read quite a lot of 20th-century crime. My favourites out of that were James M. Cain, Dassiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene and Patricia Highsmith.

I think that writers of literary fiction would do well to read more books for children.

Just be yourself and forget all of the stuff you read in 'GQ' magazine.

I see disappointment as something small and aggregate rather than something unified or great. With a little effort, every failure can be turned into something good.

Often I listen to songs on repeat for days and days at a time. There's something hypnotic or meditative, and it mirrors the way that I am putting the sentence together, going back over the same phrases again and again.