In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters.

Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.

Prosperity or egalitarianism -- you have to choose. I favor freedom -- you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.

Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life.

Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." (spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa)

The secret to a masterpiece is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

Its easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it

Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.

One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.

No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.

Call me sentimental, but there's no-one in the world that I'd like to see get dysentery more than you

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.

He grabbed my chin, pulling me towards him. 'In my dreams, ' he told me, his voice still as hard and cold as an iceberg, 'more interesting things happen. Things that involve the two of us'.

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.

But there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks.

As the generation of Holocaust survivors and liberators dwindles, the torch of remembrance, of bearing witness, and of education must continue forward.

Because I was in Atlanta, people didn't realize I'm one of the real forefathers in the game.

How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?

Every new form of liberation is destined to eventually become another form of enslavement for most of its adherents.

You should do something that will make your heart dance once a day. If you can't do that because you're too depressed, then do something that will make somebody else's heart dance.