Very often, people who actually pick up a book of mine for the first time are kind of surprised. And I get these letters saying, well, who knew that you were good, you know?

One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting.

One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity. If you can make them sufficiently uncomfortable, they frequently respond by doing what you need them to do in the spirit of setting people free or ceasing arrests, which has worked time and time again with PEN.

As I look back, I feel a touch of pride at my younger self's dedication to literature, which gave him the strength of mind to resist the blandishments of the enemies of promise. The sirens of ad-land sang sweetly and seductively, but I thought of Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of his ship, and somehow stayed on course.

The only people who see the whole picture,' he murmured, 'are the ones who step out of the frame.

It may be that the books that were best liked in your lifetime are not the ones that are best liked 100 years later.

One either loves, or waits for love, or banishes love for good. That is the full range of possible choices.