1. “Work is what saves you.”
2. “There is no creation without tradition. No one creates from nothing”
3. “I have no literary fears.”
4. “I had the good fortune of having a happy, closely knit family.”
5. “Writing is a struggle against silence.”
6. “Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.”
7. “I use a lot of film images, analogies and imagination.”
8. “My system for staying young is to work a lot, to always have a project on the go.”
9. “In literature, you know only what you imagine.”
10. “The new world economic order is not an exercise in philanthropy, but in enlightened self-interest for everyone concerned.”
11. “Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.”
12. “Culture consists of connections, not of separations: to specialize is to isolate.”
13. “Don’t classify me, read me.”
14. “i am not interested i slice of life, what I want is a slice of the imagination.”
15. “I don’t think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.”
16. “Memory is satisfied desire.”
17. “Art gives life to what history killed. Art gives voice to what history denied, slenced, or persecuted. Art brings truth to the lies of history.”
18. “No government functions without the grease of corruption.”
19. “There must be something beyond slaughter and barbarism to support the existence of mankind and we must all help search for it.”
20. “Incredible the animal that first dreamed of another animal.”
21. “Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.”
22. “You start by writing to live. you end by writing so as not to die.”
23. “To read and write is a paradise.”
24. “Reading, writing, teaching, learning are all activities aimed at introducing civilizations to each other.”
25. “I live through risk. Without risk there is no art. you should always be on the edge of a cliff about to fall down and break your neck.”
26. “There is no creation without tradition; the ‘new’ is an inflection on a preceding form; novelty is always a variation on the past.”
27. “Religion is dogmatic. politic is ideological. Reason must be logical but literature has a privilege of being equivocal.”
28. “Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror.”
29. “I love having critics for breakfast.”
30. “In the names of certainty, the greatest crimes have been committed against humanity.”
