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

Tremendous interest in the superficial is very characteristic of cultures in decline.

My father always had doubts about the Booker prize, although they evaporated on the announcement that he had won it.

There's Chile and there's Uruguay, and no one quite knows why Uruguay is so appealingly selfless because they've had their terror and their revolution like all the rest. But somehow, there's something in them.

So if you ever felt something behind you, when you weren't even one, like welcome heat, like a bulb, like a sun, trying to shine right across the universe - it was me. Always me. It was me. It was me.

Most writers need a wound, either physical or spiritual.

More will mean worse.