A good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is without a doubt, hard work.

‎Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure...but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness.

No democracy is born perfect, and none ever gets to be perfect. Yet democracy is superior to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because, unlike them, democracy is perfectible.

I have been always fascinated and seduced by history, which I think is very close, very close to literature.

A good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is without a doubt, hard work.

The worst thing that can happen to an artist is to be subsidized by the state. It leads to an intellectual and artistic castration.

Science is still only a candle glimmering in a great pitch-dark cavern.