“Writing is the only art form where a good number of the artists make a slice of their living criticizing one another in print, in public. ”

“I write for the same reason I read: because it's all there is for me.”

“Literature simply becomes richer after you've been fired, rejected, stranded, or had to change a few midnight diapers.”

“Harold Bloom weeps for me.”

“Reading was a joy, a desperately needed escape -- I didn't read to learn, I was reading to read.”

“Where we hope to land (and where we do land, though only for a fleeting moment, enough for tired wings to catch the wind anew) is a 'there' which we thought of little and knew of even less.”

“If political rights are necessary to set social rights in place, social rights are indispensable to make political rights 'real' and keep them in operation. The two rights need each other for their survival; that survival can only be their joint achievement.”