I didn't go to school much, so I taught myself what I knew from reading.

I am increasingly afflicted by vertigo where words mean nothing

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag...

The Nobel Prize is run by a self-perpetuated committee. They vote for themselves and get the world's publishing industry to jump to their tune.

For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.

The most exciting periods of literature have always been those when the critics were great.

They can't give a Nobel to someone who's dead so I think they were probably thinking they had better give it to me now.