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I didn't choose literature. Literature chose me. There was no decision on my side.

Literature has become my life.

I was inspired to write this book by those who are sceptical of the power of freedom to change the world.

Literature helps us transcend ourselves.

I don't think I've had a very interesting life, and I feel that is a great liberation. That gives me great freedom as a fiction writer. Nothing that happened holds any special tyranny over me.

Novelists have always had complete freedom to pretty much tell their story any way they saw fit. And that's what I'm trying to do.

If you are a serious writer or just a normal one, in one way or another, you are writing in the service of freedom. All writers know, understand, or dream that their work will be in the service of freedom.

Literature is the ditch I'm going to die in. It's still the thing I care most about.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

For a writer, personal freedom is not so important. It is not individual freedom that guarantees the greatness of literature; otherwise, writers in democratic countries would be superior to all others. Some of the greatest writers wrote under dictatorship - Shakespeare, Cervantes.