But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

It seems to me that you would have to write a novel on a very small, intimate scale for it not to become political.

My only regret is that I signed away the world rights and in America they've been far and away my most successful books, but I never saw a cent from any of it.

You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it.

Writers never feel comfortable having labels attached to them, however accurate they are.

The plain fact is that she never really liked me, and never wanted me. I had been a mistake; and that, to some extent, is what I remain in my own eyes, to this day. The knowledge never goes, can never be undone. You just have to find a way to live with it.

As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic.