For 30 years I have tried to make it understood that there are no criminals.

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. I don't think an artist can ever be happy.

If each one of us could make just one other happy, the whole world would know happiness.

Trotsky rises to give me his hand, then sits at his desk, gently allowing his regard to light on my person.

I adore life but I dont fear death. I just prefer to die as late as possible.

We are all potentially characters in a novel--with the difference that characters in a novel really get to live their lives to the full.

I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My characters—I would like to have them heavier, more three-dimensional ... My characters have a profession, have characteristics; you know their age, their family situation, and everything. But I try to make each one of those characters heavy, like a statue, and to be the brother of everybody in the world.