You must find the right voice (or voices) for the timbre that can convince a reader to give himself up to you.

The desire for magic cannot be eradicated. Even the most supposedly rational people attempt to practice magic in love and war. We simultaneously possess the most primitive of brain stems and the most sophisticated of cortices. The imperatives of each coexist uneasily.

That was probably the mistake of my generation, that we thought that having sex with anyone would be intimate and it wasn't.

Writing is one of the few professions left where you take all the responsibility for what you do. It's really dangerous and ultimately destroys you as a writer if you start thinking about responses to your work or what your audience needs.

Sometimes it was worth all the disadvantages of marriage just to have that: one friend in an indifferent world.

I believe I belong to the last literary generation, the last generation, that is, for whom books are a religion.

Sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities.