“I write to discover what I know.”

“I write to discover what I think”

“...I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it again.”

“I don't write about what I know: I write in order to find out what I know.”

“I don’t like writers whose writing is so obvious that I can predict what he’ll write while I’m still taking in his current thoughts. Why, this means that I know what he knows, and the point of reading is to discover things and thoughts which I don’t already know or that haven’t occurred to me. The greatest amusement is surprise. Fellatio! (Bet you didn’t see that coming!)”

“The difference between travel writing as fiction is the difference between recording what the eye sees and discovering what the imagination knows. Fiction is pure joy - how sad that I could not reinvent the trip as fiction.”