[Flaubert] didn’t just hate the railway as such; he hated the way it flattered people with the illusion of progress. What was the point of scientific advance without moral advance? The railway would merely permit more people to move about, meet and be stupid together.

Is any novelist going to recognize the moment when he or she has nothing more to say? It is a brave thing to admit. And since as a professional writer you are full of anxiety anyway, you could easily misread the signs.

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.

Did you know that there is no exact rhyme in the Russian language for the word 'pravda'? Ponder and weigh this insufficiency in your mind. Doesn't that just echo down the canyons of your soul?

Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.

The companionship of dead writers is a wonderful form of live friendship.