From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books.

Why should be fruit be held inferior to the flower?

Weakness is strength.

In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy but always against one's own body.

By revolution we become more ourselves, not less.

He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.

Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own unorthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.