It’s not what you do some of the time that counts, it’s what you do all of the time that counts..

I'm far too middle-class to morally object to a paying job..

Nothing good comes out of depression..

Yes. I've been asked to pose nude, but I never have, and I probably never will..

I knew Id always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, Well, Id rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one..

So many see themselves as aggrieved; so few see themselves as aggrievers..

Literature has neglected the old and their emotions. The novelists never told us that in love, as in other matters, the young are just beginners and ….

Jen, we did it. Everyone's free now..

Nothing good ever comes without a price..

The biggest book for me, when I was fifteen, was Crime and Punishment, which I read in a kind of fever. When I put it down, I thought, if this is wha….

You can't get it right, until you make it wrong..

I am a writer, not a transcriber..

I've lived my life dealing with everybody. And that's how it's always been for me..

I'm voraciously looking to express myself in my work. I love my work..

A novelist who ranks with Proust , Kafka , Musil and his friend James Joyce as one of the enduring pillars of Modernism..

Frankly, once I've eaten a thing, I don't expect to see it again..

When I sing, I always relive a part of my life..

On its own, having escaped my grasp, the spool I had loosed was unwinding..

Words are one thing, deeds are quite another..

Will loved to gallop..

Neither fear nor resist change - cultivate it..