“I don't think any novelist should be concerned with literature…literature should be left to essayists. ”

“I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.”

“Literature is not at the service of the government; on the contrary, governments should do everything in their power to create a favourable climate for literature.”

“What literature can and should do is change the people who teach the people who don't read the books.”

“Literature is an ethical leap. It is a moral decision. A perilous exercise in constant failure. Literature should have grievances, because there are so many grievances in the world.”

“I see no reason in morality, why literature should not have as one of its intentions the arousing of thoughts of lust. It is one of the effects, perhaps one of the functions of literature to arouse desire, and I can discover no grounds for saying that sexual pleasure should not be among the objects of desire which literature presents to us, along with heroism, virtue, peace, death, food, wisdom, God, etc.”