I wanted to portray very, very dark subject matter and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colours and simplest lines possible to leave the readers reeling.
Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers.
With Jack Abramoff under indictment, a number of readers have suggested that now he might flip and try to offer the feds some figures higher up the food-chain.
My personal theory is that younger audiences disdain books - not because those readers are dumber than past readers, but because today's reader is smarter.
There are many people who say, 'I write for myself.' I think that if you write and publish, then you write for your readers, not just for yourself. Many writers say that they write to be loved. I place myself among those writers.
Readers will stay with an author, no matter what the variations in style and genre, as long as they get that sense of story, of character, of empathetic involvement.
All prizes have a role, if they are run with integrity and with a clear focus on reading and quality writing. I don't think any of them is necessary, but they all play an incredibly important role in building a body of literature, in introducing new authors to new readers, and extending reading.
Both my mum and dad were great readers, and we would go every Saturday morning to the library, and my sister and I had a library card when we could pass off something as a signature, and all of us would come with an armful of books.
Teenage readers also have a different relationship with the authors whose work they value than adult readers do. I loved Toni Morrison, but I don't have any desire to follow her on Twitter. I just want to read her books.
I'd like the reader to decide if he is willing to pay minute sums for content. I'd like the economics of web to be controlled between authors and readers, not advertiser.
If you read in front of your kids, it's very likely that they'll become readers, too.
What I would not like is to be ignored. I write from the heart. I don't write for me. I write for my readers.
When I wrote 'The Interestings,' I wanted to let time unspool, to give the book the feeling of time passing. I had to allow myself the freedom to move back and forth in time freely, and to trust that readers would accept this.
I receive emails from readers that both break my heart and give me a profound sense of connection. Several months ago, I received an email from a teacher who told me that 'Legend' was the first book one of her troubled young students had ever read to the end. He cried when he finished it. Stories like that stay with you forever.
Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.
There are so many awful things in this world, but I wanted readers to share with me the small, beautiful, enjoyable things. Things like cute clothes, beautiful art and pretty flowers; items that are overflowing with beauty. If you just become obsessed with your own problems, you miss these things. When you discover them, you become happy.
I trust the readers to build their own visual images. To me, that's part of the wonder of reading.
The point of my stories was not to defeat Trump. The point was to tell readers the facts about this man running for president. How reliable was he at keeping promises? How much moral responsibility did he feel to help those less fortunate than he? By the end of the election, I felt I'd done my job.
As a columnist, I realize that whatever amount of corruption I expose, half my readers will block it out, although they may get a frisson of joy in the process.
I teach 18- to 21-year-olds - the 'Harry Potter' generation. They grew up as voracious readers, reading books in this exploding genre. But at some point, I would love for them to give Umberto Eco or A.S. Byatt a try. I hope 'A Discovery of Witches' will serve as a kind of stepping-stone.
Alternative cartoonists have to rely on comic book stores to get their stuff in the hands of readers.
In the polls, over 80% support the right to die and have done for the last 25 years. Even 80% of practising Catholics and Protestants support it, plus 76% of Church Times readers.
Without sounding pompous, I really do feel that I have a set of standards that I must adhere to, even leaving aside considerations of what the readers expect.
The fact of the matter is I always have a really high sense of responsibility to the reader, whether it's a few readers that I get or a lot of readers, which I was lucky enough to get with 'Olive.' I feel responsible to them, to deliver something as truthful and straight as I can.
I just love the idea that people disappear into the story for a while. You grab a book, and you want to get back to it, and your life becomes a bit of an interruption. I would love readers to feel like that.
Readers tell me that my novels are filled with significant mothers. Do I realize this? Do I do it on purpose? The truth is, I don't. I think of myself as a writer of family stories. I write more often than not from a male point of view, and I usually begin by focusing on siblings, spouses, even fathers, before I think about the mothers.
When I got into the Beatles, I must have only been about six or seven but old enough to take notice. We used to have an old radiogram which, for readers of a certain age, was like a big cabinet thing with a record player inside it.
If you look at the heritage of the best advertising, you can make stuff that is great for both readers and advertisers. I don't think Don Draper would have loved banner ads.
If we as writers could predict what readers grab on to, we would write it.
One of the interesting things about YA books - I don't know about Percy Jackson, but I do know about 'Twilight' and 'Maximum Ride': There are a lot of adult readers. In fact, we released 'Maximum Ride' both as a paperback for kids and as a mass release for adults.
The world may be full of fourth-rate writers but it's also full of fourth-rate readers.
One of the biggest complaints readers have about my work is that I don't tell them often enough what they can do. I do think this is an area where journalism sometimes falls short. We describe a really grim situation but don't really explain to people what they can do about it.
Sometimes I have to compromise my views, but I never compromise on issues like the death penalty and the arm trade laws, despite what the readers or letters may say.
You can use your means in a good and bad way. In German-speaking art, we had such a bad experience with the Third Reich, when stories and images were used to tell lies. After the war, literature was careful not to do the same, which is why writers began to reflect on the stories they told and to make readers part of their texts. I do the same.
Fashion for a long time was very elitist and difficult to get access to. The access I can now provide to my readers live from fashion shows with my iPhone was never, ever possible before.
I think there's a joy to be had in taking readers where they just don't want to go. If you are writing a properly realist novel, then don't blink. Why not see something for what it is and render it truthfully? I find it a good way of going about writing - not to blink.
