Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.
Perhaps the best way to write is to do so as if one were already dead, afraid of no one's reactions, answerable to no one's views.
Writing is making sense of life.
Communists are the last optimists.
The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It's quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.
If you live in Europe . . . things change . . . but continuity never seems to break. You don't have to throw the past away.