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

Nationality isn't soul.

A man has to construct, invent, his freedom.

If the stories come, you get them written, you're on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.

Children were strangers you loved because you could love. If they gave back love when they were grown you were ahead of the game.

Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.

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.