But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it.

It seems to me that you would have to write a novel on a very small, intimate scale for it not to become political.