But there are some wounds that can never be healed.

It's disturbing at my age to look at a young woman's destructive behaviour and hear the echoes of it, of one's own destructiveness in youth.

That's one of the things I hope that the book can do, is to restore some dignity to Joe Cinque.

The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfilment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall.

Writers seem to me to be people who need to retire from social life and do a lot of thinking about what's happened - almost to calm themselves.

I'm full of restlessness. Not lonely, exactly - my head is racing with ideas. But it is that old treacherous feeling that real life is happening somewhere else, and I'm left out.

I'm very disturbed by violence against women when it is violence.

People demand a lot of the justice system and they demand things that it can't deliver.

I think writers are very anxious.

It's a terrific privilege to be able to see into somebody else's life.

I like poking my nose into other people's lives.

All they had to do was let go, and they'd be free. But they held on.

Good leaders make heroes of others.

All wrong doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the best thing to do.

A fierce and sentimental addiction to forms makes us shudder at change. It is much easier to say that the system is all right-only the people need to be improved.

Becoming a solo singer is like going from an eau de toilette to a perfume. It's much more intense.

Sometimes working on one painting will help solve a problem in another painting.

There are people who are so full of common sense that they haven't the slightest cranny left for their own sense.

When I race my mind is full of doubts - who will finish second, who will finish third?

Give love, and keep blood between brothers

You needed a new pancreas. The one we bought for you frees you from a dangerous dependency.” “Thanks, but I was enjoying that dependency.