When a new saying gets to the land of empty men, they lose their heads over it.

Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.

I think dialects should be left alone. People should write in whatever dialect they feel they want to write. In the fullness of time, these dialects will sort themselves out.

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.

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.

I grew up recognizing that there was nobody to give me any advice and that you do your best and if it's not good enough, someday you will come to terms with that.

When I'm writing, I really want to satisfy myself. I've got a story that I am working on and struggling with, and I want to tell it the most effective way I can. That's really what I struggle with. And the thought of who may be reading it may be there somewhere in the back of my mind - I'll never say it's not there because I don't know - but it's not really what I'm thinking about.