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

The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out to be either half truths or lies.

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

I completely believe that - literature for me is a way of life. That's probably true of all writers or all artists. I think in the end this kind of activity absorbs one in such a way that it becomes one's way of life.

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

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.

But what do I have? The things I'm told and the things I tell, that's all. And as far as I know, that never yet made anyone fly.