“The central problem of novel-writing is causality.”

“I do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity known as ‘The Masses’. Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in. I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time.”

“Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.”

“The art of writing is mysterious, the opinions we hold are ephemeral....”

“Reading . . . is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.”

“If a writer disbelieves what he is writing, then he can hardly expect his readers to believe it.”

“In an isolated region from Iran there is this wall tower, windowless, doorless, not very tall. In its only room with arched walls and the stamped earth as its floor, there’s a wooden table and a bench. In this round cell a man that looks like me is writing in signs that i don’t understand a long poem about a man who in another round cell is writing a poem about a man in another round cell. Endless series; nobody will ever read what prisoners write. ”