A novel, in the end, is a container, a shape which you are trying to pour your story into.

Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away.

A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.

The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes.

i wish i was away in Ingo far across the briny sea sailing over deepest waters where neither care nore worry trouble me

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.

It is a violation which has obsessed the tyrants of the twentieth century. They do not want simply to kill their opponents, but to liquidate them, to deny that they have ever existed.

However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

Your net worth depends on your added value

Love is a flame of light.

Call on God. He will answer.

Our worst can become our best if mistakes are gathered like twigs of a bird's nest, giving one true foundation, a spiritual home to build their life upon.

Famous is celebrityism, and I don't want that... I know that I'm not that. Everybody knows who you are. I can't imagine living that life, but I don't think I consider myself famous.

Destroy the man of wicked thoughts, Like a bamboo-tree with its fruit.

Public is a good expert on making bad mistakes!

You look like a normal person, if you can find a normal person who wants to look like that.

Humanism cannot survive on a purely secular platform.

The best ideas often look terrible at the beginning the truly good ideas, don't seem like they're worth stealing.