People run away to be alone,' he said. Some people had to be alone.

I get melancholy if I don't [write]. I need the company of people who don't exist.

I read hungrily and delightedly, and have realized since that you can’t write unless you read.

Memories can be everything if we choose to make them so. But you are right: you mustn't do that. That is for me, and I shall do it.

I believe in not quite knowing. A writer needs to be doubtful, questioning. I write out of curiosity and bewilderment.

My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so: I am a storyteller.

Only love matters in the bits and pieces of a person's life.

The capacity you're thinking of is imagination; without it there can be no understanding, indeed no fiction.

People like me write because otherwise we are pretty inarticulate. Our articulation is our writing.

He traveled in order to come home.

I value mothers and motherhood enormously. For every inattentive or abusive mother in my fiction I think you'll find a dozen or so who are neither.

This is definitely / for the brothers / who ain't here.

Nothing in her world aligns to the surreality of her dreams. She can feel his presence, his warmth, his depth of intent pressing against her.

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.

To seek the perfection of the warrior's spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our manhood.

You have to be brave and not always play likeable people. It's difficult, because there's a demand for the hero or heroine to be very likeable.

If you take real-life circumstances and take out all the pauses then you have a thriller. It has to be non-stop, high stakes and fascinating all the time. Real life is like that from time to time.

I hate being wrong, but I love it when I'm set straight.

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

It is a base thing for a man among the people not to obey those in command. Never in a state can the laws be well administered when fear does not stand firm.

If there is any trouble within your heart - be free, in the name of Jesus Christ