A lot of critics think I'm stupid because my sentences are so simple and my method is so direct: they think these are defects. No. The point is to write as much as you know as quickly as possible.

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it.

My special situation was that I was the son and grandson of architects. And so I saw building. We were building the city, and that was exciting.

People would be surprised if they knew how much in this world was due to prayers.

The dog, who had sounded so ferocious in the winter distances, was a female German Shepherd. She was shivering. Her tail was between her legs. She had been borrowed that morning from a farmer. She had never been to war before. She had no idea what game was being played. Her name was Princess.

I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.