Longing, the hope for fulfillment, is the one unwavering passion of the world's commerce.

A writer's life is so hazardous that anything he does is bad for him. Anything that happens to him is bad: failure's bad, success is bad; impoverishment is bad, money is very, very bad. Nothing good can happen... Except the act of writing.

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

Anyone at any age is able to tell the story of his or her life with authority.

And so the ordinary unendurable torments we all experienced were indeed exceptional in the way they were absorbed in each heart.

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing - none of that is writing. Writing is writing. Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech.