In a certain sense a writer is 'selected' by his subject - his subject being the consciousness of his own era.

The facts are always less than what really happened.

I'm a candle flame that sways in currents of air you can't see. You need to be the one who steadies me to burn.

it's impossible to conquer all fear and loss by preparation. There are always sources of desolation that aren't taken into account because no one knows what they will be.

I couldn't be sufficiently interested in human beings to be a writer if I had contempt for human beings.

what a writer does is to try to make sense of life. I think that's what writing is, I think that's what painting is. It's seeking that thread of order and logic in the disorder, and the incredible waste and marvelous profligate character of life. What all artists are trying to do is to make sense of life.

The primacy of the word, basis of the human psyche, that has in our age been used for mind-bending persuasion and brain-washing pulp, disgraced by Gobbles and debased by advertising copy, remains a force for freedom that flies out between all bars.