First, he says, you have to go out into the world. This is not a simple matter of going outside one's door. No, that is simply going out. That's what one does when one is on the way to the store to buy a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of wine. When one goes out into the world, one is shedding preconceptions of past paths and ideas of past paths, and trying to move freely through an unsubstantiated and new geography.

In searching for a way out of my own troubles, I had found my way into the troubles of others, some long gone, and now I was trying to find my way back out, through their troubles, as if we human beings can ever learn from one another.

If he acts, if he doesn't, it's meaningless. The whole thing goes forward. No one is important. No one at all.

I'd say writing is easier for me now than it once was, but I do less of it.

I begin with an image of some sort, just as if you saw something out of a window, and then went to the window to see what it was.

Clarity is the most important thing to me - in thinking - and so I try in the books to be as clear as possible.

A person always has a chance to protest this or that.