I didn't become a writer to write about me.

All art began as sacred art, you know? I mean, all painting began as religious painting. All writing began as religious writing.

We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny.

The novel does not seek to establish a privileged language but it insists upon the freedom to portray and analyze the struggle between the different contestants for such privileges.

Writers have been in terrible situations and have yet managed to produce extraordinary work.

Freedom to reject is the only freedom.

It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.