We have a very foolish notion in Western countries that progress delivers freedom. But progress doesn't necessarily bring moral virtue.

Writing about sex at length is a bit like describing mastication at length. It's the causes and the consequences and the meaning of it that are interesting, not the anatomical descriptions.

Literary prizes serve a purpose if they allow for discussion of books.

Is it easier for a man to live his life again as a fish, than to accept the wonder of being human? So alone, so frightened, so wanting for what we are afraid to give tongue to.

I had some bad jobs when I was young. Writing is not one of them. If you're fortunate enough to reach my age, to still be writing, you have to be grateful, and I am. I've been lucky. For many years, all I've done is writing, and it's all I've ever wanted to do.

The enslavement, humiliation, torture, and ultimate destruction of thousands upon thousands of human beings for a project for which there was ultimately no purpose is a horror that's very hard to imagine, far less understand.

What you're constantly seeking isn't a style, but a transparency between your soul and the words. And your soul is ever in flux, so therefore you have to constantly find new forms of words that might be able to register these changes in the soul.