I think most serious writers, certainly in the modern period, use their own lives or the lives of people close to them or lives they have heard about as the raw material for their creativity.

It is when you are angry that you must watch how you talk.

A word is worth one coin, silence is worth two

It is inconceivable to me that a million or three million or half a million human beings will think and feel precisely the same way on any single subject.

It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned. . . . You're alone when you're learning. But you always use it on other people. It's different when there are other people involved.

I do not have many things that are meaningful to me. Except my doubts and my fears. And my art.

Each generation thinks it fights new battles. But the battles are the same. Only the people are different.