Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.

I mean, you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's policy is benevolent, can you now?

Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.

Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.

We lie to one another every day, in the sweetest way, often unconsciously. We dress ourselves and compose ourselves in order to present ourselves to one another.

If you see the world as gloomily as I see it, the only thing to do is laugh or shoot yourself.

My definition of a decent society is one that first of all takes care of its losers, and protects its weak. What I see in my country, progressively over these years, is that the rich have got richer, the poor have got poorer. The rich have become indifferent through a philosophy of greed, and the poorer have become hopeless because they're not properly cared for. That's actually something that is happening in many Western societies. Your own, I am told, is not free from it.