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

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.

My answer is: Recognize yourself in others

The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Ideology demands it. Society exacts it.

Communists are the last optimists.

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.

I don't think I am a citizen of the world; I am very much a citizen of my own country. But my own country is closely related to other parts of the world and influenced by what happens there.