I believe in discovering the love that exists and then trying to understand it. Not to invent a love and try to make it exist, but to find what does exist, and then to see what it is.

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.

I have a different purpose in writing each novel. Some of them seem more similar than others, but the purposes are always different.

I'm an elephant today. I will need to have lots of room and also a bowl of water on the floor.

If Americans are to read something that is difficult, they will only do so supposing they will be admired for having done it.

Not that believing such things has anything to do with whether they are true. You see that, don't you?

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