I am a better novelist than a poet, playwright, or essayist.

We use words to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other.

...the human being to lack that second skin we call egoism has not yet been born, it lasts much longer than the other one, that bleeds so readily.

I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement. Yes, I'm a writer, but I live in this world, and my writing doesn't exist on a separate level. And if people know who I am and read my books, well, good; that way, if I have something more to say, then everyone benefits.

That is the dream of all novelists-that one of their characters will become 'somebody.'

Words that come from the heart are never spoken, they get caught in the throat and can only be read in ones's eyes.

The world had already changed before September 11. The world has been going through a process of change over the last 20 or 30 years. A civilization ends, another one begins.