You have the itch for writing born in you. It's quite incurable. What are you going to do with it?

Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.

My preference is for prose with more silence in it, language that contains more pockets of strangeness.

One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.

When I can’t write I read. When I can’t read I sleep. And when I can’t sleep I write.

Ideas aren't magical; the only tricky part is holding on to one long enough to get it written down.

I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.

The most important things in our intimate lives can't be discussed with strangers, except in books.

I continue to cling to words because it is up to us to transform them into instruments of comprehension

I write across several genres. I’m a slut for words. I can’t keep it in my literary pants.

You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more."("The Castle")

We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.

Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him.

If I didn't have writing, I'd be running down the street hurling grenades in people's faces.