As writers, we are exploring the mystery, the mystery of existence.

The process of writing fiction is totally unconscious. It comes from what you are learning, as you live, from within. For me, all writing is a process of discovery. We are looking for the meaning of life. No matter where you are, there are conflicts and dramas everywhere. It is the process of what it means to be a human being; how you react and are reacted upon, these inward and outer pressures. If you are writing with a direct cause in mind, you are writing propaganda. It's fatal for a fiction writer.

If you live in Europe . . . things change . . . but continuity never seems to break. You don't have to throw the past away.

Any writer of any worth at all hopes to play only a pocket-torch of light - and rarely, through genius, a sudden flambeau - into the bloody yet beautiful labyrinth of human experience, of being.

Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.

Responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of Creativity.

As writers, we are exploring the mystery, the mystery of existence.