Sincerity is never having an idea of oneself.

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

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

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.

You can't be afraid to do good in case evil results.

It's absolutely fatal to your writing to think about how your work will be received. It's a betrayal of whatever talent you have.

From Ernest Hemingway's stories I learned to listen within my stories for what went unsaid by my characters.