“The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.”

“Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.”

“What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us wha...”

“Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.”

“The creative act is not pure.”

“You can't change a regime on the basis of compassion. There's got to be something harder.”