I think as you grow up and you see things which are around you and you ask questions and you hear the answers, your situation becomes more and more of a puzzle. Now, why is it like this, why are things like this and since writing is one way in which one can ask this questions and try to find these answers, it seems to me a very natural thing to do, especially as it meant stories which I always found moving, almost unbearably necessary.

There is no story that is not true, [...] The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.

Art should be on the side of humanity.

And theories are no more than fictions which help us to make sense of experience and which are subject to disconfirmation when their explanations are no longer adequate.

We live in a sea of general ideas, so that's not a novel, since there are so many general ideas. But the moment a particular idea is linked to a character, it's like an engine moves it. Then you have a novel underway.

An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.