If you want to learn how to be happy, you have to know what is sadness first.

Nobody else in the world would look at writing as craftsmanship - it's totally this Protestant hardworking ethic. You go into this kind of infinite space of imagination and you fence yourself in with all kinds of laws.

The one who swallows cactuses with spines should not complain about hemorrhoids.

I rarely return to characters. My characters, at least most of them, are much more a part of that superorganism that is the story than separate and independent creatures.

Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they’re no good.

I never know the endings when I write. It's a turnoff when you know the ending. You lose much of your incentive to write when you already know. It's like seeing a movie a second time.

The reason I write is that I'm not in dialogue with my emotions; writing puts me in touch with myself.