Dictatorships are one-way streets. Democracy boasts two-way traffic.

Every true writer is like a bird; he repeats the same song, the same theme, all his life. For me, this theme as always been revolt.

This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.

Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation in turn becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources - and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on in the future.

The novel as we knew it in the nineteenth century was killed off by Proust and Joyce.

When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day.

Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.