I do not think writers ought ever to sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme... If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.

Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.

This has been going on for 30 years. I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all. It's a royal flush.

Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.

You advise me, too, not to stray far from the ground of experience, as I become weak when I enter the region of fiction; and you say, 'real experience is peren…

''Write what you know' is a tautology. You have no choice -- you have to write what you know, and in order to write something new, you have to learn something …

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.…