I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.

In order not to cut out a large part of one's private life, the creative work should not swallow up every other form of self-expression. But that is the most complicated thing.

The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose

Writers, because they write, are condemned never to be readers of their own stories...The memory of first putting a story into words will always prevent writers from reading their work as an ordinary reader would.

Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing.

I didn't choose anonymity.Instead, I chose absence.

He was going through one of those moments that you read about in books, when a character reacts in an unexpectedly extreme way to the normal discontents of living.