I enjoy feeling fastidious and aloof. I enjoy saying no, always no, and I should be afraid of any attempt to construct a finally habitable world, because I should merely have to say - Yes; and act like other people.

A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the written words.

This [service to oppressed] is the writer's task, and, if he fulfills it as he should, he acquires no merit from it.

To think new thoughts you have to break the bones in your head

I receive letters from workers, from secretaries. . . . They are the most interesting ones.

The writer is committed when he plunges to the very depths of himself with the intent to disclose, not his individuality, but his person in the complex society that conditions and supports him.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.