The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader's heart.

The shock of photographed atrocities wears off with repeated viewings, just as the surprise and bemusement felt the first time one sees a pornographic movie wear off after one sees a few more.

Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom. Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.

I'm more cautious about what I write.

The history of art is a sequence of successful transgressions.

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.

I make an idol of my moral consciousness. My pursuit of the good is corrupted by the sin of idolatry.