To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.

Oh, it is not death that frightens me, but the impossibility of imparting some meaning to my past.

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.

When I have my manuscript finished, more or less, I type it myself, with two fingers. I type fast with two fingers. And then when it's ready, I reread, recorrect, and retype it. Everything is my own work. I do not give it to secretaries or to typists.

Bread, soup - these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.

When you see the abyss, and we have looked into it, then what? There isn't much room at the edge -- one person, another, not many. If you are there, others cannot be there. If you are there, you become a protective wall. What happens? You become part of t

Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship; were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.