I write because I'm unhappy. I write because it's a way of fighting unhappiness.

I couldn't imagine any other way of living, outside of books, outside my work. Which doesn't mean I am not interested in other things, of course - I am interested in many things. But the center, the crux, is always literature.

There are people with a lot of prejudice, a lot of fear of the unknown. They think that immigration is a danger, when really it is a solution. This is an interesting issue, because it will be a central question of our time.

That is one thing I am sure of amid my many uncertainties regarding the literary vocation: deep inside, a writer feels that writing is the best thing that ever happened to him, or could ever happen to him, because as far as he is concerned, writing is the best possible way of life, never mind the social, political, or financial rewards of what he might achieve through it.

Violence represents the worst kind of conformism.

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

No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.