“A novel is more a symphony, opera, oratorio. It exists in time, it goes by you a sound dying out as you write on, so that it is very hard to keep in touch with the whole thing...”

“You may be able to write a novel, you may not. You will never know until you have worked very hard indeed and written at least part of it. You will never really know until you have written the whole of it and submitted it for publication.”

“Each time a language dies, another flame goes out, another sound goes silent.”

“Do you know how some people can do anything?”“What do you mean?”“I mean, you tell them to write a tune, they give you a symphony right there. You tell them to write a book, they write you a novel in a day. You tell them to move a spoon without touching it, they move it. If they want something, they make it happen. Miracles, almost.”

“If you write about the present it is very much more difficult to make things sound convincing. But writing about the past means that you are writing about a situation in which you know at least as much as anyone else.”

“Okay, so I want to talk about it. Dammit, how can you be so good at the whole keeping things to yourself thing? It's really hard.”