Writers, as they gain success, feel like outsiders because writers don't come together in real groups.

To learn and to love, that is what we are here for, any activity which is not grounded in one of these two is a waste of time.

It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.

There are too many other inexplicable things around us--horrors, threats, mysteries that draw you in and then inevitably disenchant you. Back to the predictable and humdrum. The prince is never going to come, everybody knows that; and maybe Sleeping Beauty's dead.

For me, places have a tremendous impact. I fall in love with places. All of life seems different in different places.

I like mainly to be invisible, to sort of drift around unseen in the world.

Maybe a new religion will rise now. Maybe without it, man will crumble in cynicism and selfishness because he really needs his gods.