I project myself so deeply into the characters in novels that I'm not thinking about my own life.

We exist for ourselves, perhaps, and at times we even have a glimmer of who we are, but in the end we can never be sure, and as our lives go on, we become more and more opaque to ourselves, more and more aware of our own incoherence. No one can cross the boundary into another – for the simple reason that no one can gain access to himself.

I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books.

You can't ever approach a book as a complete virgin, certainly not if you're a critic. There is a lot of bad faith out there. That's why I finally trained myself not to look at this stuff anymore, because it doesn't do me any good to see myself either praised or attacked.

Stories happen only to those who are able to tell them, someone once said. In the same way, perhaps, experiences present themselves only to those who are able to have them.

Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy.

Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever.