Fantasy is toxic: the private cruelty and the world war both have their start in the heated brain.

The paradox of romantic love -- that what one possesses, one can no longer desire -- was at work.

Certain books come to meet me, as do people.

But in general, for the purposes of most novelists, the number of objects genuinely necessary for. . .describing a scene will be found to be very small.

writers do not find subjects: subjects find them. There is not so much a search as a state of open susceptibility.

whenever possible I avoid talking. Reprieve from talking is my idea of a holiday. At risk of seeming unsociable, which I am, I admit I love to be left in a beatific trance, when I am in one. Friendly Romans recognize that wish.

I became, and remain, my characters' close and intent watcher: their director, never. Their creator I cannot feel that I was, or am.