I have always tried to write in a simple way, using down-to-earth and not abstract words.

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.

If your vision of the world is of a certain kind you will put poetry in everything, necessarily.

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

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

A novelist is a man who doesn't like his mother.

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