The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.

I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state... It's become a fact of life that govern…