Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn.

The process of writing a novel begins with a pang, a moment of recognition, and a situation, a character, or something you read in a paper, that seems to go off, like a solar flare inside your head.

Mere fact has no chance of being formally perfect. It will get in the way, it will be all elbows.

This (writing) is the love of your life. It's what I want to do when I wake up. Nothing feels so absorbing, so fulfilling.

Envy never comes to the ball dressed as envy; it comes dressed as high moral standards or distaste for materialism.

I think Jorge Borges said that when Argentineans die they turn into angels and go and live in Uruguay. But for the rest of South America, you have to say that it's getting there - becoming civilized - and will get there. It's had a real grit war in history. The choice between those societies until recently was the choice between tyranny and chaos. Everyone understood that. You've got to have a strong man, or it's going to be a mess.

The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone.