The social or economic structure of the ideal state is of little concern to me. My desires are modest. Portraits of the head of the government should not exceed a postage stamp in size. No torture and no executions. No music, except coming through earphones, or played in theaters. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of art.

And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to cope with my tears.

No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has.

Caress the detail, the divine detail.

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

Resemblances are the shadows of differences. Different people see different similarities and similar differences.

A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the past.