The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world

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.

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

The lake and the mountains have become my landscape, my real world.

It just happened. As though a moment comes when it's both necessary and natural to make a decision that has long since been made.

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

We live in a time when writers do not always have barriers around them