A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

As a novelist I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories and I give them money.

My greatest fear is feeling like a professional novelist. Somebody who creates characters who sits down and has pieces of paper taped to the wall - what's going to happen in this scene or this act. What I like is for it to be a much more scary sloppy reflection of who I am.

As a novelist I mined my history my family and my memory but in a very specific way. Writing fiction I never made use of experiences immediately as they happened. I needed to let things fester in my memory mature and transmogrify into something meaningful.

The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.

I know that books I have written will still resonate in 50 years - particularly 'My Sister's Keeper.' It has sold three million copies in the States alone. I strongly feel that as a novelist you have a platform and the ability to change people's minds.