Quote

One's politics are part of one even when one is writing. But if I want to say anything about the state of civil society, I will write an essay. The responsibilities you feel as a novelist are literary ones, I think, not civic ones. And I think politicians are interesting to write about.

I am not a political writer. I agree with Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, who are social writers. I can't write in that fashion. I am not good enough for that. What I am interested in is family dramas and why we are doing bad things to each other and what our motives are.

What I do know is that writing is the thing I am best at, and I don't have the stomach, the ability, the strength or the courage to enter the political arena. And I think writing can be a political act, if only to let those people accountable know they are being watched. Literature can be a conscience.

When you cover politics, you realize that knowing how to talk about character matters more and more. The way we hold ideas is more important than the ideas.

Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory.

I happen to think that American politics is one of the noblest arts of mankind; and I cannot do anything else but write about it.

I always believe writing is an indispensable part of one's political armoury.

There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am.

I don't make that hard and fast distinction between political and nonpolitical writing. I write about what bothers me.