If you look at the recent Nobel Prize winners, one couldn't say that the work didn't matter and the political commitment did. Who had ever heard of the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz? He is not politically involved. Octavio Paz is a great poet, also not politically involved. The Nobel Prize is for literature, for the quality of work over the years.

Writing is always a voyage of discovery.

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

There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.

A desert is a place without expectation.

when it comes to their essential faculty as writers, all writers are androgynous beings.

in writing, sex doesn't matter; it's the writing that matters.