I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.

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

I have learned since that sometimes the things we want most are impossible for us. You may long to come home, yet wander forever.

You can't change a regime on the basis of compassion. There's got to be something harder.

Fiction is a way of exploring possibilities present but undreamt of in the living of a single life.

In a country like South Africa, writers have nuisance value, because those of us who have become known overseas have certainly helped to inform people about what life is like there.

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.