I began to wonder whether anything truly existed, whether reality wasn't an unformed and gelatinous substance only half-captured by my senses....If that were true, each of us was living in absolute isolation. The thought terrified me. I was consoled by the idea that I could take that gelatin and mold it to create anything I wanted...At times I felt that the universe fabricated from the power of the imagination had stronger and more lasting contours than the blurred realm of the flesh-and-blood creatures around me.

In the United States, the fact that you can start again gives a lot of energy and strength and youth to this country. That is why it's so powerful in many ways, and so creative.

A novel is achieved with hard work, the short story with inspiration.

I have seen these persons speak unthinkingly, not realizing that to speak is also to be. Word and gesture are man's thought. We should not speak without reason.

My writing comes not from the happy moments, but from struggle and grief.

It's such an intimate and profound relationship that it cannot be unconditional. I can only compare the intimacy of sex with the intimacy of the mother with a newborn baby. But with a newborn baby, it is unconditional.

Nothing changes; we humans repeat the same sins over and over, eternally.