It's absolutely fatal to your writing to think about how your work will be received. It's a betrayal of whatever talent you have.

The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It's quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.

I never talk about what I'm writing about currently, never. It's private work on your own, no need or obligation to talk about it. Writers are made into performers these days, including myself, but there are some instances in which I will not perform.

The facts are always less than what really happened.

The caged eagle become a metaphor for all forms of isolation, the ultimate in imprisonment. A zoo is prison.

Writing is making sense of life.

I believe - I know (there are not many things I should care to dogmatize about, on the subject of writing) that writers need solitude, and seek alienation of a kind every day of their working lives. (And remember, they are not even aware when and when not they are working.) ... The tension between standing apart and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer.