I have a basic indolence about me which is essential to writing. ... It's thinking time, it's hanging-out time, it's daydreaming time. You know, it's lie-around-the-bed time, it's sitting-like-a-dope-in-your-chair time. And that seems to me essential to any work.

Write from what you know into what you don't know.

The wrong word is like a lie jammed inside the story.

Waves, once they land on the beach, are not reversible.

I write for the still, small possibility of justice.

I am very interested in people trying to write because I don't have a big academic background at all.

Art is too long, and life is too short.