Certainly the people who are close to me are happier. They feel freer.

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.

Responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of Creativity.

If people would forget about utopia! When rationalism destroyed heaven and decided to set it up here on earth, that most terrible of all goals entered human ambition. It was clear there'd be no end to what people would be made to suffer for it.

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

Written words still have the amazing power to bring out the best and worst of human nature

Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.