I write a lot in my head. The revision goes on internally. It's not spontaneous and it doesn't have a schedule.

I'm trying to earn a living in the way that is most enjoyable to me. I love the world of literature, and I hope to support myself in it.

On their way to freedom, some people find riches, some people find death.

I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.

One of the things reading does, it makes your loneliness manageable if you are an essentially lonely person.

Had the Holocaust happened in Tahiti or the Congo, as it has; had it happened in South America, as it has; had it happened in the West Indies, as it has - you must remember that within fifty years of Columbus's arrival, only the bones remained of the people called the Arawaks, with one or two of them in Spain as specimens. Had the Holocaust committed under the Nazis happened somewhere else, we wouldn't be talking about it the way we talk about it.

My disappointments stand up and grow ever taller. They will not be lost to me.