I am the queen of spades, I am the wasp that stings, I am the dark serpent. I am the invulnerable animal who passes through fire and is not burned.

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.

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.

At most, I may write when I am disturbed by something. I have recently discovered the pleasure of finding written answers to written questions.

I have always paid careful attention to social and economic conflicts, to the dialectic - if we can call it that - between high and low. Maybe it's because I was not born or brought up in affluence.

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

I think our sexuality is all yet to be recounted and that the rich male literary tradition constitutes a huge obstacle.