It's a sin for a writer to go looking for camels to put into his or her pages. I only want details that are the story.

The idea of the past is as useless as the idea of the future. Both could be invoked by anybody about anything. There is never any more beauty than there is now. There is no more joy or wonder or sorrow than there is now, nor perfection, nor any more evil nor any more good than there is now.

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

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 think empathy's a terrible danger for a writer.

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.

One cannot distinguish between human and non-human acts. One cannot point, one cannot say this man here is a man and that man there is a devil.