It is impossible to fuse totally with a culture for which you feel a measure of antagonism.

I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art.

Two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul

If I had a plot that was all set in advance, why would I want go through the agony of writing the novel? A novel is a kind of exploration and discovery, for me at any rate.

The span of a man's life - that is nothing. But what a man makes of that span - that is something. A man must make his own meaning for life. Meaning is not automatically given to life.

Two hundred or more years ago most people on the planet were never aware of any reality other than the one into which they were brought up.

You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn't always talk. Sometimes-sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to.