There is an incompatibility between literary creation and political activity.

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.

Using two-dimensional lenses to perceive the multi-faceted world can limit your ability to observe the world more objectively.

I was just a small boy from Mississippi, and now little kids are going to identify with me through this game.

Ability is that sufficiency which cometh from God.

Don't believe your own publicity. You can't; you'll start thinking that you're better than you are.

There is no genius where there is not simplicity.

You would assume that a filmmaker should know how to edit, but pretty much every filmmaker I've worked with doesn't know how to edit.

Proverbs are all very fine when there's nothing to worry you, but when you're in real trouble, they're not a bit of help.

It's a ho wide world that we living in.

An annoyed and joyless Christian is the devil's greatest billboard.

I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly.