There's something romantic about it, of course, in the way only other people's lives can be.

But the ground shakes, as if something's trying to push up from below, and I think of other people's mothers shaking out their duvets or even God shaking out the fabric of space-time.

My novels are high concept. I guess big ideas interest me more than, say, the minutiae of domestic life.

It's important for people to figure out their own lives before involving someone else - to gauge where you are and work on your own issues.

I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense of what happens in the middle that's important.

People make events into stories. Stories give events meaning.