I don't think you have the right to shout about other people's private life.

It's like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of the first draft. Every day you're making up the earth you're going to stand on.

I have written a memoir here and there, and that takes its own form of selfishness and courage. However, generally speaking, I have no interest in writing about my own life or intruding in the privacy of those around me.

You could not tell a story like this. A story like this you could only feel.

Being famous as a writer is like being famous in a village. It's not really any very heady fame.

Swimming always cleans your soul

I went to work in 1962, and by '64 I was writing all the time, every night and every weekend. It didn't occur to me that, having read nothing and knowing nothing, I was in no position to write a book.