Only when the mind is free has the body a chance to be free. Yes, they must believe, they must believe. Because I know what it means to be a slave. I am a slave.

The artist must be like a heart surgeon. He must approach something with sympathy, but with a sort of coldness and work and work until he finds some kind of perfection in his work. You can't have blood splashing all over the place. Things must be done very cleanly.

Anytime a child is born, the old people look in his face and ask him if he's the One.

Sometimes you got to hurt something to help something. Sometimes you have to plow under one thing in order for something else to grow.

All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.

We all have much more in common than we have difference. I would say that about people all over the world. They don't know how much in common that they have

I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.