In a repressive society, a writer can be deeply influential, but in a society that's filled with glut and repetition and endless consumption, the act of terror may be the only meaningful act.

I think fiction comes from everything you've ever done, and said, and dreamed, and imagined. It comes from everything you've read and haven't read... I think my work comes out of the culture of the world around me. I think that's where my language comes from.

There are no amateurs in the world of children.

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.

Writers in repressive societies are considered dangerous. That's why so many of them are in jail.

Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the sombre renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings.

One connection I see between novelists and terrorists is that we both attempt to alter consciousness.