Keenness of hearing revives when one is alone.

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

Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope.

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.

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

A desert is a place without expectation.

I cannot live with someone who can't live without me.