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I do not understand how on earth you can become a writer without seeing the world.

The writer studies literature, not the world.

For a country to have a great writer is like having a second government. That is why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

One of the admirable features of British novelists is that they have no scruple about setting their stories in foreign settings with wholly foreign personnel.

For a man who no longer has a homeland, writing becomes a place to live.

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

Few things are more painful than being a successful writer born in a small country with an impenetrable language.

Great artists have no country.

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.