I began to write when I was seven, and I have been writing off and on ever since. It is still off and on. You can say that when I am on, when I know I have a book which I am going to write, then I write two thousand words a day. That's so many pages longhand.

The greatest pleasure is not - say - sex or geometry. It is just understanding. And if you can get people to understand their own humanity - well, that's the job of the writer.

Heaven lies around us in our infancy.

There is, they say, no fool like an old fool.

Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.

What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?

A star appeared...and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement.