I am worrying about my country. I feel I have a responsibility as a novelist to do something.

Then when dusk began to settle he would retrace his steps, back to his own world. And on the way home, a loneliness would always claim his heart. He could never quite get a grip on what it was. It just seemed that whatever lay waiting "out there" was all too vast, too overwhelming for him to possibly ever make a dent in.

I don’t know, I don’t feel right unless I’ve got the sea and mountains nearby. People are mostly a product of where they were born and raised. How you think and feel’s always linked to the lay of the land, the temperature. The prevailing winds, even.

Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free?

As long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else. It always happens, sooner or later.

Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.

Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to get it.