It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.

A doctor is not criticized for describing the manifestations and symptoms of an illness, even though the symptoms may be disgusting. I feel that a writer has the right to the same freedom In fact, I think that the time has come for the line between literature and science, a purely arbitrary line, to be erased.

The word is now a virus.

If you talk you always end up with politics, it gets nowhere. I mean man it's strictly from the soft typewriter.

I don't know what falling in love for me is. The concept of romantic love arose in the Middle Ages. Now remember, the Arabs don't even have a word for love-that is, a word for love apart from physical attraction or sex. And this separation of love and sex is a western concept, a Christian concept. As to what falling in love means, I'm uncertain. Love, well, it means simply physical attraction and liking a person at the same time.

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change.

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.