Philipp Meyer

“I thought that I would have a huge literary novel coming out when I was, like, 29. I quit my banking job, and I was halfway through my second novel - and I will never publish it, because it's very mediocre.”

“I should say that generally I'm a pretty happy person, but as soon as I'm done with a project, I'm usually not happy at all. I feel a little empty and strange. I begin to think about how I can get better, stretch more artistically and intellectually. My biggest worry is getting complacent.”

“There's a reason that all societies and cultures and small bands of humans engage in myth-making. Fundamentally, it is to help us understand ourselves.”

“When I dropped out of high school at age 16, I didn't know I was going to become a writer - I just knew I'd never been happy in school, and I had this strong suspicion I'd be happy doing other things.”

“Your mind burns a lot of calories. Writing can feel like a physical workout.”

“My first published novel, 'American Rust,' took three and a half years of full-time work to write. But I wrote two apprentice novels before that.”

“I wanted to think about our creation myth; you know, what is the fundamental story that defines America. And it certainly is the West.”

“At 16, I dropped out of school and spent five years working as a bicycle mechanic and volunteering in a Trauma Centre before ultimately deciding to go to university.”

“I try to begin writing as close to a dreamlike state as I can get.”

“I didn't fit the typical profile of a trader. I was an English major working on a novel at night. Most everyone else was a maths or economics major; most everyone else had relatives or family in banking.”

“When you look at 'Grapes of Wrath,' the weakest moments are those in which Steinbeck is spouting a political idea directly at the reader. The book's real power comes from its slower, broader movement.”

“Fundamentally, all art is about human beings. You're always showing larger moral questions through the smaller moral, philosophical, or political choices through one character in the book.”

“I like mechanical things; my first book was a mechanics guide - that was what my parents couldn't pry away from me; that was the blanket.”

“If you're always thinking about someone else's work, about the tradition you're working in, how can you possibly make anything good?”

“Cornell changed my life; getting in there was one of my pinnacle moments.”

“You don't make a decision about being a writer. There was a point, aged 21, when it became clear that this is who I am. The choice is how good you are going to be at it and how hard you are going to work.”

“At Cornell University, it was well known that after five years on Wall Street, you could expect to be making half a million a year in salary and bonus; after 10 years, you could expect a million or more. I had 60 grand of university debt, and my parents had no retirement. I needed that money.”

“Life throws up enough road blocks to keep you from writing; you can't be adding to them yourself by saying you can only write in one specific place. I'm in New York half the time and Texas half the time, and I work wherever - in my computer bag I have some foam ear plugs that I can put in.”

“My parents have always been incredibly supportive. Even when I dropped out of high school, they said, 'We trust you, we believe in you.'”

“My ideal is to write most of the day, then go running, find friends and socialise all evening; my mind recharges with human contact.”