Politics is a matter of choices, and a man doesn't set up the choices himself. And there is always a price to make a choice. You know that. You've made a choice, and you know how much it cost you. There is always a price.

In one deep sense, novels are concealed autobiography. I don't mean that you are telling facts about yourself, but you are trying to find out what you really think or who you are.

A young man's ambition - to get along in the world and make a place for himself - half your life goes that way, till you're 45 or 50. Then, if you're lucky, you make terms with life, you get released.

I longed to know the world's name.

How do poems grow? They grow out of your life.

All I've tried to do (with my writing) is capture the essence of my time.

I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without.