„Very
few writers are motivated solely by the desire for recognition. It is
lovely if it happens, but it cannot be the reason we sit down every
day to stare at a screen and be immersed for hours in the soup of our
thoughts. Most of us are motivated by the power of an idea, an image,
a character, a world, a moral conundrum. This engages our imagination
so deeply that we are willing to stay with it for the years it may
take to find its most artful expression. (...) The
completion of a novel brings an end to the creative relationship we
have with our idea, but publication gives it a chance to be sustained
in the imagination of readers. This is what fuels a fiction writer:
the ongoing life of the ideas we love. The saddest thing about a book
failing to reach an audience is not the wound to the ego, but the
ending of the conversation. (...) Don’t underrate being underrated.”
