I am not particularly distressed by the state of fiction or the role of the writer. The more marginal, perhaps ultimately the more trenchant and observant and finally necessary he'll become.

Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It´s a settling of grievances between the present and the past.

The modern meaning of life's end-when does it end? How does it end? How should it end? What is the value of life? How do we measure it?

He wanted paper and something to write with, some way to sustain a thought, to place it in the world.

It's my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I've written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel is a big one, but I don't know.

The greater the scientific advance, the more primitive the fear.

Murray said, ´I don´t trust anybody´s nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It´s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence. War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.´