Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.

But when you're deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it's amazing.

What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that's my function, but from time to time it's possible for me actually to help a writer. I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.

Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.

I do not believe that it is necessarily the duty of the writer to give a voice to his community. If a writer is true to his vocation, to his or her vocation, the very process of creativity enlarges these human horizons. It provides insights, even when you're not writing, when your writing's not dealing with a concrete political situation.

My mind immediately shot to South Africa the moment I sat down to think what I was going to write, what I was going to say. There was no other choice.