There was a time when young people respected learning and literature and now they don't.

When there's a war, people get married.

I wasn't an active feminist in the '60s, never have been.

Charity has always been a expression of the guilty consciences of a ruling class.

Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.

A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough...People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

I do not think writers or anybody would sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme, or something. If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.