It's very useful when politicians have doubts because there are so many choices to be made in the world.

In a novel, my feelings and sense of outrage can find a broader means of expression which would be more symbolic and applicable to many European countries.

Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.

An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt.

The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.

I claim the right to take a stand once in a while.

There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about.