A man who invents himself needs someone to believe in him... Not only the need to be believed in, but the need to believe in another. You've got it: Love.

The only way to find out why someone decides to engage in armed combat is to look at their individual personality.

I think that a lot of us, whether we are religious or not - there are no words to express some things except religious words. For instance, 'soul.'

I think, in a written novel, the way in which you play with the readers' emotion or the way in which you engage the readers' emotions can be very indirect. You could come at it through irony or comedy, etcetera, and you could capture people's sympathies and feelings kind of by stealth if you like.

It seems to me it's perfectly possible to vehemently disagree with a piece of work and to say that it's offensive and insulting and so on and so on. And you're absolutely entitled to do that and to speak back, if you like, against that piece of speech with all the vehemence at your disposal. I mean, that's legitimate. Even other things. People have a right to demonstrate.

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

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