It is often said by religious people that without its framework, there is no sense of right or wrong. My view is that religion comes after ethics.

Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everythingin every possible way. The reason for ensuring that that privileged arena is preserved is not that writers want the absolute freedom to say and do whatever they please. It is that we, all of us, readers and writers and citizens and generals and goodmen, need that little, unimportant-looking room. We do not need to call it sacred, but we do need to remember that it is necessary.

What had been (at the beginning) no bigger than a full stop had expanded into a comma, a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter; now it was bursting into more complex developments, becoming, one might say, a book - perhaps an encylopaedia - even a whole language.

I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.

I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

We are the storytelling animal.

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.