The philosophical conservative is someone willing to pay the price of other people s suffering for his principles..

We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and nervy..

I am often asked the question How can the masses permit themselves to be exploited by the few. The answer is By being persuaded to identify with them..

The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like..

A novel is a printed circuit through which flows the force of a reader's own life..

We are able to walk on air, but only as long as our illusion supports us..

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way..

A novelist is a person who lives in other people's skins..

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon..

I have been everywhere because I don't know what I'm looking for..

Because like all whores you value propriety. You are creature of capitalism, the ethics of which are so totally corrupt and hypocritical that your be….

I am telling you what I know—words have music and if you are a musician you will write to hear them..

The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card..

What we call fiction is the ancient way of knowing, the total discourse that antedates all the special vocabularies....Fiction is democratic, it reas….

There is really no fiction or non-fiction; there is only narrative. One mode of perception has no greater claim on the truth than the other; that the….

Facts are the images of history, just as images are the facts of fiction..

Banks and churches and courtrooms all depend on the appurtenances of theatre. On illusion. Banks, the illusion of stability and honourable dealings t….

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go..

The poem is a cry of the unborn heart. Yes, because the poem perfectly embodies the world, there is no world without poem..

I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative..

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing..