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.

Your whole life you are really writing one book, which is an attempt to grasp the consciousness of your time and place– a single book written from different stages of your ability.

A child understands fear, and the hurt and hate it brings.

Time is change; we measure its passage by how much things alter.

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.

I decided that I wanted nothing to do with South African government television while any of my fellow writers were banned and couldn't speak publicly.

When I was a child, we seemed to be living in a world remote from the rest of the world. But television has made a great difference to all of us.