The time-honored role of the artist [is] to speak truth to power.

I hate admitting that my enemies have a point.

The writers of the French enlightenment had deliberately used blasphemy as a weapon, refusing to accept the power of the Church to set limiting points on thought.

Everything has shape, if you look for it. There is no escape from form.

Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.

Only the foolish, blinded by language's conventions, think of fire as red or gold. Fire is blue at it's melancholy rim, green in it's envious heart. It may burn white, or even, in it's greatest rages, black.

Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.