Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.

If you live in Europe . . . things change . . . but continuity never seems to break. You don't have to throw the past away.

In a democracy - even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-?litist one - the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law.

Censorship may have to do with literature; but literature has nothing whatever to do with censorship.

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

All worthwhile writing... comes from an individual vision, privately pursued.

Mumbling obeisance to abhorrence of apartheid is like those lapsed believers who cross themselves when entering a church.