I could meet dreadful people and end up seeing the world through their eyes, seeing their frailties, their needs.

His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

And it was strange, I thought, that sorrow lasts and can make a man look forward to death, but the mood of victory fills a moment and then is over

When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.

I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment.

If writers just sit and talk about oppression, they are not going to do much writing.