We invented the car, and it made it easier for us to crash and die. If I gave a car to my grandfather, he would die in five minutes, while I have grown up slowly to accept speed.

I don't want to write a novel per year. I know that I need a break of one or two years. So maybe I invent some new, urgent activity so I don't fall into the trap of starting a new novel.

I think of myself as a serious professor who, during the weekend, writes novels.

The cultivated person's first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the encyclopedia.

When the poet is in love, he is incapable of writing poetry on love. He has to write when he remembers that he was in love.

If culture did not filter, it would be inane - as inane as the formless, boundless Internet is on its own. And if we all possessed the boundless knowledge of the Web, we would be idiots! Culture is an instrument for making a hierarchical system of intellectual labor.

Not that the incredulous person doesn't believe in anything. It's just that he doesn't believe in everything.