A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.

As long as a man stays alive he can't tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks.

I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempt to understand, and if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer - he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.

There are no wrong books. What's wrong is the fear of them.

There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to go - if there are no doors or windows he walks through a wall.

I write a book at least three times-once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say.

Politics isn't in my nature.