I'm Always The One With The Activist

The Great Thing About Using The Past Is That It Gives You The Most Colossal Freedom To Invent. The Research Is Necessary, Of Course, But No One Writes A Novel To Dramatically Illustrate What Everybody Already Knows.

If You Ever Read One Of My Books I Hope You'll Think It Looks So Easy. In Fact, I Wrote Those Chapters 20 Times Over, And Over, And Over, And That If You Want To Write At A Good Level, You'll Have To Do That Too.

I Never Base Characters On Real People. There Are People Who Do That But I Really Don't Know How To Do It.

What I Find Really Attractive Is Something That's Going To Be A Little Dangerous. Something That Might Get Me Into Trouble; You Know, You Turn Up In London And You've Just Rewritten Dickens. And, Of Course, Then You Think, 'what Have I Done?

It's Like Standing On The Edge Of A Cliff. This Is Especially True Of The First Draft. Every Day You're Making Up The Earth You're Going To Stand On.