To the militant, identity is everything.

My urge to write is an urge not to self-expressionism but to self-transcendence. My work is both bigger and smaller than I am.

The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty - of the indefinite expansion of possibility.

I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.

A good book is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility what human nature is of what happens in the world. It's a creator of inwardness.

Desire has no history.

But I cannot forgive those who did not care about more than their own glory or well-being. They thought they were civilized. They were despicable. Damn them all.