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

Time and distance from the first and second world wars doesn't seem to lessen their horrors.

After a certain age - and for some of us that can be very young - there are no new people, beasts, dreams, faces, events: it has all happened before.

It is quite easy to remark the absurdities and contradictions of a country's social system from outside its borders, but very difficult if one has been brought up in it.

I write because I've always written, can't stop. I am a writing animal. The way a silk worm is a silk-producing animal.

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.

There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.