It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.

I was brought up to believe in free will. Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day.

I am thankful, of course, for the prize and thankful to God for each story, each idea, each word, each day.

What a strange power there is in clothing.

But if we have people who have the power to tell a story, there will always be readers.

Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.

No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world.