What makes books - and with them writers - so dangerous that church and state, politburos and the mass media feel the need to oppose them?

An empty bus hurtles through the starry night Perhaps the driver is singing and happy because he sings.

After the collapse of socialism, capitalism remained without a rival. This unusual situation unleashed its greedy and - above all - its suicidal power. The belief is now that everything - and everyone - is fair game.

Believing: it means believing in our own lies. And I can say that I am grateful that I got this lesson very early.

How easily the routine of sin establishes itself.

What novel - or what else in the world - can have the epic scope of a photograph album? May our Father in Heaven, the untiring amateur who each Sunday snaps us from above, at an unfortunate angle that makes for hideous foreshortening, and pastes our pictures, properly exposed or not, in his album, guide me safely through this album of mine.

Writers know that sometimes things are there in the drawer for decades before they finally come out and you are capable of writing about them.